Programs and Projects Overview
The Alliance's Strategic Plan defines its current programs and goals for each program. Grant-funded projects help the Alliance achieve these goals.
Water Quality Program
- Increase public awareness of water quality issues
Citizen Monitoring/Stream Team
The Alliance actively monitors the health of our streams
through our Citizen Monitoring Program. Thanks to grants from
the Sierra Nevada Alliance and the CALFED Watershed Program,
we are able to coordinate citizen volunteers to take water quality
samples and physical measurements that we track over time.
For more information on the citizen monitoring program, please click here.
Youth Stream Team
The Youth Stream Team program links existing watershed monitoring and restoration efforts with the educational needs of at-risk youth by forming school-based Youth Stream Teams. Teams develop an understanding of watershed ecology and the skills and interest to participate in resource management decisions. For more information on youth stream teams, please click here.
Chico Storm Drain Inlet Marking and Outlet Monitoring Project
The Alliance provides on-going outreach for the City of Chico’s Storm Water Program and assists the City with marking storm drain inlets and monitoring storm drain outlets. 1200 inlets are marked each year. Inlet marking kits are distributed to interested volunteers during each monitoring event.
Outlet monitoring takes place during the dry season and is intended to document the condition of the outlet and whether or not there is water present.
Chico Urban Streams Alliance Project
The Chico Urban Streams Alliance is a partnership among the Alliance, the Butte Environmental Council, Kennedy/Jenks Consultants and the City of Chico to reduce the impacts of urban runoff on the city's creeks. The project concluded in 2007 and included initiating the Alliance's citizen monitoring program, a public education effort on urban runoff pollution, and an evaluation of the city's urban pollution control structures. For more information on this project, please click here.
Dirt Road Rehabilitation Project
The Alliance, in partnership with the Big Chico Creek Ecological
Reserve, regraded a dirt road on the Reserve to demonstrate
techniques that can be used to reduce erosion and resulting
sedimentation of our creeks. Together with the Butte County
Resource Conservation District, the Alliance made presentations
to community groups and held a field day to tour the improved
road. This demonstration
and outreach project was funded through a grant from the
Sierra Nevada Alliance. For more information on the dirt
road rehabilitation program, please
click here.
Fisheries Program
- Restore fish passage through Iron Canyon
- Identify appropriate gravel management for Big Chico Creek System
Iron Canyon Fish Ladder Rehabilitation Project
Spring run Chinook salmon swim up Big Chico Creek to spawn, but are blocked by the basalt boulders that have tumbled into the creek above Salmon Hole in Bidwell Park. A fish ladder was built in the 1950s to provide pools of water for the fish to traverse the blocked area and reach the cooler pools to hold over the summer for fall spawning. It has fallen into disrepair and the Alliance is working together with the resource agencies to fund a fix. For more information on this project, please click here.
Wildlife Resources Program
- Participate in Butte County/City of Chico General Plan updates and BCAG Habitat Conservation Plan/Natural Community Conservation Plan as resources allow
Groundwater Program
- Participate in and provide information on groundwater management in Butte County as pertains to the Big Chico Creek watershed
Basin Management Objectives Education Project
The Alliance facilitated the establishment of stakeholder
groups in the Chico Urban Area and the Vina area as defined
in the County's Basin Management Objectives (BMO) Ordinance.
BMOs are standards for the health of our groundwater and
are set by these stakeholder groups for groundwater
levels, groundwater quality and land subsidence. For more information on this project, please click here.
Watershed Modeling and Groundwater Outreach Project
Butte County received a grant through the CalFed Watershed Program to develop a watershed model encompassing the upper watershed portions (i.e. above the outcropping of the Lower Tuscan formation) of Big Chico Creek, Little Chico Creek, Butte Creek, and Cherokee Creek watersheds. This model will provide information on recharge parameters that will be used as input into the Butte Basin Groundwater Model. There is a public outreach component to this grant, involving education about groundwater management, locally and statewide. The four watersheds named above as well as the Deer Creek watershed have each received funding to help with the public outreach and education.
Groundwater Stakeholder and Policy Efforts
The Alliance participates in discussions and provides stakeholder feedback
to developing plans for increased groundwater use in Butte, Glenn, Tehama
and Colusa Counties, related to increasing statewide water supply and
restoring water quality in the Bay-Delta. Our participation is founded on
two principles:
1. Increased use of north valley groundwater to provide additional
statewide water supply or to improve Bay-Delta water quality must be
accompanied by science adequate to prevent harm to existing users and
groundwater-linked ecosystems; and
2. Decisions about projects and programs for shared groundwater resources
should be made in an open, public process that provides adequate
opportunities for stakeholder input.
For more information on developing efforts to manage groundwater on a
regional basis, please click here.
Stream Channel & Riparian Habitat Program
- Develop a long-term solution for Sycamore Creek flooding issues at Cohasset Road
- Develop next phase of floodplain and riparian restoration along Bidwell Avenue south of Nord Avenue Bridge
Bidwell Reach 2 Restoration Project
The Alliance, in partnership with Streaminders and CSU, Chico Research Foundation, received a grant from the State Water Resources Control Board under Proposition 50 to fund a Big Chico Creek restoration project. The project area is along Big Chico Creek west of Nord Ave., on both sides of the creek starting at the big meander near Bidwell River Park downstream to the Rose Ave. Bridge. This project includes using “biotechnical” streambank stabilization to address the erosion that is threatening homes and Bidwell Avenue. The project also includes “floodplain excavation” where terraces are created when existing steep banks constrict the stream. For more information on this project, please click here.
Verbena Fields Restoration Project
The Alliance, in partnership with the City of Chico, Mechoopda Maidu Indians, Streaminders, and the CSU Chico Research Foundation, received a grant from the State Water Resources Control Board under Proposition 50 to fund this restoration project. Verbena Fields is a 20.9-acre city-owned former gravel mining operation along Lindo Channel near the intersection of East 1st and Verbena Avenues. Tthe project will restore and enhance habitats on land that was heavily impacted by gravel mining and increase the flood capacity for a constricted section of Lindo Channel. For more information on this project, please click here.
Flood Management Program
- Cooperate with Rock Creek Reclamation District and Butte County to identify solutions to Rock and Keefer Slough flooding
Invasive Plants Program
- Reduce the populations of invasive plants in the Big Chico Creek Watershed
Arundo and Tamarisk Eradication Project
The Alliance, in partnership with Team Arundo del Norte and the CSU Chico Research Foundation, received a grant to eradicate Arundo donax (giant reed) and Tamarix spp. (tamarisk) in Lindo Channel and also in Big Chico Creek upstream of the dam at Five Mile. These non-native plants are highly invasive, cause channel changes and increase fire danger. We are working with the City of Chico Park Division to implement this project. For more information on this project, please click here.
Broom Education and Eradication Project
The Alliance, in partnership with the Butte County Resource Conservation District, received a grant from the California Dept of Food and Agriculture to remove highly-flamable Spanish and French broom plants from the upper Big Chico Creek Watershed. This project is being implemented by the Forest Ranch Broom Education and Eradication Program (BEEP) community action group. For more information on this project, please click here.
Fire Management Program
- Expand California Native Plant Society and Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve’s broom eradication projects to other parts of the watershed and coordinate riparian removal with upland areas to prevent re-infestation
Environmental Education Program
- Develop educational programs in partnership with existing efforts to increase public and K-12 understanding of watershed functions
Citizen Monitoring/Stream Team
Watershed Modeling and Groundwater Outreach Project
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