Coast & Ocean Magazine Spring 1998

Restoring the
Carmel River Floodplain

The Good Lake

CAROL ARNOLD

THERE ARE PLACES along the coast where water wants to be and where for many years it has not been allowed to be. These are floodplains that have been separated from rivers and streams by levees and artificial channels. Before these structures altered the natural flow, floodwaters would spread out on the land, bringing sediment and nutrients to replenish the soils and providing habitat for fish, birds, and other wildlife amid thick riparian vegetation. Floods were usually beneficial rather than disastrous events.

See The Making of a Hydrologist

Also See Restoring Farmland to Nature

The 36-mile-long Carmel River flows from the Santa Lucia and Sierra de Salinas Mountains through steep ravines and canyons, winds through the Carmel Valley, and joins the Pacific Ocean just south of Carmel. As agriculture was developed at the Carmel River mouth, the floodplain was drained and filled, water was diverted, wells were dug, and the river was confined by levees in a narrow artificial channel. The fertile soils of the floodplain nurtured both livestock and vegetables, just as today they yield delectable artichokes. Later, as dams were built upstream to store water for human uses, the summer flow in the lower river and the lagoon diminished. Houses were built just north of the lower river, some with their backyards practically in the water.
Yet the Carmel River still wants to follow its ancient pathways, unrestricted and unconfined. This becomes dangerously evident during flood years, when damage to farmland and homes can be devastating. In the past, major floods, like those of 1862 and 1911, merely enriched the soil of the floodplain. Now, when water overflows or breaches the levees, repairs cost millions of dollars.
Less obvious, yet equally damaging, is the loss of fish and wildlife habitat that has resulted from the channelization and diversion of the river. The Carmel River used to have one of the premier steelhead runs in the state. In the 1920s some 20,000 fish made their way upstream to spawn. By the early 1990s only a few hundred were counted. Steelhead survival depends on healthy coastal lagoons and estuaries, shady channel banks, and adequate water supplies. In response to disastrous declines, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the central coast steelhead as a threatened species in 1997.

Photo: Costal Conservancy Files
1. Houses that have been flooded in the past during large storms
2. Area being restored
3. Carmel River Lagoon

Ten years ago, a team of agencies and organizations launched an effort to recover some of what had been lost at the lower Carmel River. The Coastal Conservancy joined with the State Parks Department, Department of Fish and Game, Carmel River Steelhead Association, Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, and Monterey County Water Resources Agency to identify opportunities for returning the lagoon to something resembling its historic condition and function.
The group agreed to cooperate on a plan to address these concerns. With funding from the Conservancy and other agencies, the nonprofit Steelhead Association retained consultants in 1992 to develop a draft plan to improve circulation in the lagoon, restore and expand fish and wildlife habitat, and reduce flood hazards to adjacent and upstream areas.
By this past winter, 40 acres of the floodplain had again been made available to floodwaters - just in time for El Niño! Instead of spilling into homes in the Mission Fields community to the north, as the river had done in prior years, it flowed over the restoration site on the floodplain to the ocean, just the way nature intended. "This is incredible, what they've done here," said Kirstin Hewett, a Mission Fields homeowner, according to the February 4 Monterey County Herald. "It's done exactly what they planned it to do."

Carol Arnold is the Coastal Conservancy's Central Coast regional manager.

Top of Page | Next Story | Previous Story
Table of Contents | Subscribe | To Conservancy