Lower SF Cottaneva Instream Habitat Improvement Project

This project will add 38 structures containing 117 pieces of LW, including 102 key pieces, along 1.2 miles of South Fork Cottaneva Creek, Rockport Creek, and an unnamed tributary to Rockport Creek. Logs will be sourced on site from dead and down logs and live trees, as well as purchased. This project will provide habitat to Coho, Chinook and steelhead. Additionally, 200 redwood seedlings and 100 native plants will be planted in the riparian zone along the project reach. The goal of this project is to increase salmonid reproductive success and juvenile survival by improving ecological complexity. This will be accomplished by increasing pool area and depth, increasing shelter complexity, sorting substrate for spawning habitat, increasing the frequency of floodplain and side channel inundation, aggrading the channel, capturing large and small wood, and providing velocity refugia during high flows.

This project was designed to meet Fish Bulletin 184s very good target value of >3 key pieces of LW per 330 feet (CDFW 2024). Logs will meet the key piece definition found in Fish Bulletin 184. This target value was chosen because key pieces are among the strongest indicators of salmonid habitat value. Stream reaches that meet or exceed this target value will provide high quality habitat for salmonids. This project will improve geomorphic function and ecological complexity in the project reach.