6/8/16
The city of Eureka is looking to expand and enhance the Elk River estuary and intertidal zone running between U.S. Highway 101 and Humboldt Bay from the beginning of the Hikshari’ Trail near the Herrick Avenue overpass down to King Salmon.
The project goal is to create about 220 acres of habitat for native juvenile marine life and eelgrass by removing dikes and flood gates to make a salt marsh in the area, which supporters said will also protect the highway from flood, waves and sea level rise while providing recreational and access opportunities.
Around 90 percent of salt marshes in Humboldt County were lost due to dikes and flood gates and there are 900 acres remaining in the Humboldt Bay area, Humboldt Baykeeper Director Jennifer Kalt said.
Phase 1 of the project was funded by a $350,000 grant from the California Coastal Conservancy and involves designing the project and running those designs by a stakeholder group for their approval.
“The proposal there is to take the dikes down and lower the flood gates so sediments from Humboldt Bay get in ... so the salt marsh doesn’t disappear,” Trinity Associates Environmental Planner and Vice President of Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District Aldaron Laird said.
Phase 1 should finish sometime this year, phase 2 will consist of drafting final engineering and design plans, as well as putting out a construction bid that will be done next year, and phase 3 will be construction that starts in 2018 and wraps up in several months, Laird said.
Phases 2 and 3 will require more grants from the coastal conservancy.
“At this point, we’re only looking at construction on city property,” he said.
The project is split up into four areas: the first two are city-owned properties that run from Herrick Avenue to the Humboldt Hill overpass while the latter are owned or used by multiple people and agencies.
“There’s plenty of good areas in areas 1 and 2,” Eureka Development Services Department Project Manager Riley Topolewski said. “Areas 3 and 4 are all up in the air but there’s a lot of potential there.”
California Coastal Conservancy project manager Joel Gerwein said the Elk River is an important habitat for endangered chinook and threatened coho salmon.
“They don’t have enough space where juveniles can hang out,” he said.
Not only would salmon use the low current area, but native Olympia oysters, other species of fish, juvenile Dungeness crab and eelgrass could also flourish under the project.
“There’s also great benefits for people like flood control,” Gerwein said.
The marsh would store flood or tidal waters, break up waves before they reach the highway and help mitigate climate change, he added.
“It’s good at taking the carbon out of the air and putting it into the soil,” Gerwein said.
