The Little Butano Creek Fish Passage and Habitat Enhancement Project will remediate a fish passage barrier and improve stream and wetland habitat on Little Butano Creek in the Pescadero-Butano Watershed. This effort builds on decades of watershed investments to restore passage, restore floodplains and lagoons, and improve flows, as well as technical lessons-learned regarding incision reversal from the 2021 Butano Creek Channel Stabilization and Habitat Enhancement at Cloverdale Road Bridge and the 2016 Butano Floodplain Reconnection. This project will address the current limit of anadromy on Little Butano Creek: a 15-foot-tall bedrock chute located approximately 1,000 feet upstream from the confluence of Butano and Little Butano Creeks. The bedrock chute is a total barrier to fish migration and is believed to have formed due to historic realignment and straightening of the creek, which led to subsequent rampant incision. This project will adjust the creek grade below the bedrock chute barrier to restore fish passage and improve 3.1 acres of habitat through installation of large wood structures, creation of pools, backwatering of existing disconnected floodplains, and habitat enhancements at two confluence zones. These actions will expand aquatic habitat, provide shelter and refugia for fish within the reach and passage to upstream habitat, reduce erosion and incision, and allow for greater retention of sediment.
