By Robert Schaulis
CalTrout announced this week that it acquired four parcels totaling 175 acres of former ranch land along the Elk River. The nonprofit conservation organization said that the acquisition represents a “significant step in the ongoing efforts to protect and restore the Elk River estuary,” as well as a “a moment of restorative justice” for the Wiyot Tribe — which has been returned one of the parcels, a site of “immense historical and cultural significance” called “Chwanuchguk” in the Wiyot Tribe’s native language, Soulatluk.
“Chwanuchguk, ‘a ridge comes down there,’ is a traditional fishing village where Wiyot people lived, harvested food and smoked fish since time immemorial,” Brian Mead, Tribal Chair of the Wiyot Tribe, said in a news release shared by CalTrout. “Access to the Hikshari’ (Elk) River and fish restoration on the Hikshari’ (Elk) River is of vital importance to the continuation of the tribe’s cultural practices.”
The remaining three parcels, CalTrout noted in the release, will eventually be transferred to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s existing Elk River Wildlife Area for “continued stewardship and ecological restoration.”
In total, CalTrout invested $1.8 million in the four parcels, funded through a grant from the State Coastal Conservancy with support from The Conservation Alliance.
In the organization’s press release, Amy Hutzel, executive officer of the State Coastal Conservancy, said: “This keystone acquisition launches a longstanding restoration vision for the Elk River made possible through close partnership with CalTrout, the Wiyot Tribe and California Department of Fish and Wildlife. It will make habitat and agriculturally productive areas more resilient to peak flood events and sea level rise, and it will extend earlier State Coastal Conservancy-funded estuary restoration upstream to support the broader restoration of the entire Elk River watershed.”
CalTrout’s North Coast Director Darren Mierau told the Times-Standard that CalTrout has been actively involved in Elk River restoration since 2012, when he joined a team of technical scientists assessing sediments in the river that had accumulated as a result of decades of timber harvesting in the area.
“CalTrout is proud to lead this collaborative restoration effort in the Elk River watershed, which is not only vital to the health of local ecosystems but also to the local communities who live here,” Mierau said, in the group’s release. “We will continue working with our engineering and science team, private landowners, our state agency partners and the Wiyot Tribe to ensure that this land is restored and stewarded for future generations.”
From 2016-22, the organization was involved in the area through voluntary partnerships with local landowners with whom they proposed a variety of watershed restoration efforts. In recent years, CalTrout managed to secure the involved parcels, two of which were becoming inundated with saltwater, reverting to salt marsh, as a result of relative sea level rise along the Elk River.
“The ultimate intent was to ultimately do what we call a ‘retreat strategy,’” Mierau said. “Sea level rise in the Elk River is faster than anywhere else in California because we have the ocean water rising, but we also have subsidence going on in Elk River. And it’s about the same rate — three to four millimeters of subsidence combined with three to four millimeters per year of sea level rise — and this is threatening all the agricultural lands along the Elk River.”
CalTrout’s release noted that “the Elk River, the largest tributary to Humboldt Bay, supports sustainable local agriculture, is a hub for essential fish habitat and flows through several residential communities. However, years of intensive land uses for timber harvest and agriculture have caused significant changes across the landscape, shifting the balance away from functional ecosystems and native fish populations.”
CalTrout’s “retreat strategy” has allowed landowners to recoup the value of lands that are becoming inundated with seawater and move that value elsewhere while allowing CalTrout to steward those lands along through restoration efforts in partnership with state agencies and the Wiyot Tribe, Mierau said.
Mierau noted that the project is intended to be a positive for all stakeholders and community members.
Mierau also said that the purchase of the parcels is a precursor to large-scale restoration efforts on the Elk River, and CalTrout’s greater plan for the restoration of the Elk River watershed along these parcels that will include upgrades “significant upgrades to public access amenities at the existing Elk River Wildlife Area,” eventually allowing residents to experience a rehabilitated Elk River along a network of public trails.
The Times-Standard reached out to representatives from the Wiyot Tribe; they could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
Readers can learn more about CaltTrout’s efforts to restore the Elk River watershed at https://caltrout.org/projects/elk-river-recovery-project.
Robert Schaulis can be reached at 707-441-0585.
