Elkhorn Slough Tidal Wetland Project - Parsons Slough Sill Project

JointScience Panel and Strategic Planning Team Meeting

May 18, 2011,9:00 – 11:10 am

Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve

Purpose of the Meeting

To review the Parsons Slough Sill implementation process and provide an opportunity to ask questions and share comments and concerns about the project and expected outcomes.

Desired outcomes

  1. Hear the project team present on major themes
  2. Answer questions about project implementation: challenges, lessons learned and tools employed
  3. Express comments, concerns, and interests about using past experiences as future learning opportunities.

In attendance:Nina D’Amore, Jeff Cann, Kelly Cuffe, Ron Eby, Mike Foster, Monique Fountain, Jim Harvey, John Haskins, George Heise, John Krause, Jessie Lacy, Bryan Largay, Steve Lonhart, Jacob Martin, Erin McCarthy, Shawn Milar, Shirley Murphy, Jim Oakden, Rikke Preisler, Mark Silberstein, Becky Suarez, Sean Van Sommeran

9:10 Presentation: Overview of the Parsons Slough Project: Design, As Built, Outcomes

Bryan Largay (ESNERR)

Q & A

  • George Heise: What time was low tide today? (6 AM) Have we seen evidence of erosive forces since the sill was in place? Bryan Largay: One of the highest places of erosion in the whole slough is the bank opposite of the sill. Added rock on southern bank in order to prevent erosion. Haven’t observed significant erosion in this spot since the sill was placed. Ivano Iaello from MLML has been doing terrestrial laser scanning on this site.
  • Kelly Cuffe: Is there a slot in the middle of the sill where the elevation is -5? Bryan Largay: Yes
  • Shawn Milar: Are you actually depositing sediment now in Parsons Slough? Bryan Largay: An assessment of the bathymetry of Parsons Slough would be helpful, but don’t have funding.
  • Ron Eby: Ivano scanned from where the bank intersects the internal area of the sill. Will have data down to the zero tide level.

9:40 Presentation: How the Project was Managed for Success, andThe Regulatory Compliance

Challenge, Monique Fountain (ESNERR)

Q & A

  • Jessie Lacy: Should also emphasize how tight the time frame was that were operating under (18 months from start to finish)
  • Monique Fountain: Barges scraped and dried out before deployment
  • Jim Oakden: Who was the contractor? Cooper Crane

10:00 Presentation: Full Steam Ahead: Fast-tracking with Union Pacific Railroad

Nathan Chaney (ESNERR)

Q & A

  • Mark Silberstein: 6 months is very fast for going through the railroad permission process – what is typical? Nathan Chaney: Very case by case. Can be very long.
  • Kelly Cuffe: How many agencies required ongoing monitoring? Nina D’Amore: California Dept. of Fish and Game, USArmy Corps of Engineers and Regional Water Quality Control Board. Bryan Largay: Elaborates that most of the effort goes to dissolved oxygen monitoring.
  • Jessie Lacy: Was Union Pacific responsive to the fact that it was an ARRA (Recovery Act) project? Nathan Chaney: Hard to tell at the level of contract manager. The funding source probably did play a role at the legal level.
  • Kelly Cuffe: Did the Parsons Slough Bridge replacement help? Did they mention anything about other parts of their rail-line needing work? Nathan Chaney: Our biggest concern was that we were in their right of way and they were concerned about the results and how that would impact the railroad.

10:10 Presentation: Parsons Slough Sill: Marine Mammal Monitoring, Erin McCarthy (ESNERR), and

Post-construction Marine Mammal Monitoring, Ron Eby (ESNERR and Okeanis)

Q & A

  • George Heise: Once the contractors were off the site, did the otters come back quickly? Erin moved to let Ron give that answer during his presentation.
  • George Heise: How many of the otters now have names? Ron Eby: Only one – Roger, but we may name the pup that we witnessed the birth of.
  • Steve Lonhart: Did you compare disturbances related to each type of construction activity, like pile driving vs. humans? Erin McCarthy: (shows a summary figure) but the data are not normalized. Anecdotal observations indicate that both seals and otters were more likely to react to human presence and movement than to noise generated by machinery.

10:50Roundtable exercise: Comments, Questions, and Concerns, facilitator: Nina D’Amore (ESNERR)

Summary (notes on commentary are below)

Comments:

  1. It is impressive that we were able to implement the sill in such a short time frame.
  2. Post-monitoring results will be valuable and informative.
  3. Funds for additional post-monitoring should be sought.
  4. Additional monitoring should include:
  5. Invertebrate recruitment on hard substrate, invasives vs. natives
  6. Water quality monitoring
  7. Old Salinas River channel input
  8. Parsons Project is learning opportunity for other decisions about management of the slough overall.
  9. Hopefully progress will be made on additional projects, even if monitoring shows uncertainty.
  10. Unfortunate that is not an adaptive management learning opportunity since the sill is not adjustable.
  11. Monitoring results should be made accessible to management agencies such that they can update permitting requirements.

Concerns:

  1. Sharks and rays use the Parsons area for breeding and will hopefully not be negatively impacted. Additional monitoring will be informative.
  2. Concern about lower shorebird abundance was recently alleviated when increased abundance was observed.

Questions:

  1. Which aspects of physical monitoring will inform decisions about larger scale management actions?
  2. At what point do we use findings from Parsons Project to move forward with other larger scale projects?

Notes:

Sean Milar: Curious to see actual data from post-monitoring, good that TWP shared insights gained throughout this process of project management.

Steve Lonhart: Interested to learn about recruitment of invertebrates, especially natives vs. invasives, on hard substrate. I amdoing a photo assessment with Kerstin soon. Has an interest in looking at successive dynamics of recruitment to sill structure. We should be applying for funding to continue invert and water quality monitoring post-sill.

Jacob Martin: impressed with efficiency of entire project. Would like copy of monitoring plans

Mike Foster: We are un-doing management decisions made by CDFG in the 1980’sand need to consider the nutrients from the Old Salinas River Channel.

Jim Harvey: marine mammal monitoring results repeatedly show similar outcomes, and yet the regulatory agencies have not modified their requirements accordingly. We should write up the monitoring results in a cohesive and accessible way, maybe publish a paper, such that the agencies can more readily change their protocols.

Mark Silberstein: Sill is a milestone and is impressed with how this project was executed

Jessie Lacy: Focuses on hydrodynamic data and is excited to hear about other aspects of the sill project. The sill presents an opportunity to monitor small scale, and opportunity to evaluate which small scale projects are informative. Wants to know which factors did not change with construction of the sill (or what wasn’t effective in achieving the sill goals of constructing the sill).

George Heise: Impressed

Jim Oakden: Sill is fun but crippled experiment. Wanted to see adaptive management and is disappointed that there is no option of manipulating the management. Monitoring is important!

George Heise: what are the physical linkages or actual monitoring that will inform the larger scale project of improving Elkhorn Slough? Points out that permitting hindered the adjustable sill option

Becky Suarez: Keep in mind that this project is one piece of the puzzle in the bigger picture of making decisions for the slough as a whole.

Kelly Cuffe: Monitoring is important and funding should be pursued in order to continue monitoring.

John Krause: At what point do other projects move forward with information gathered from the sill project? Will there be future actions taken in managing Parsons Slough using the information from post-sill monitoring? Hopes that decisions will be made and changes will be made, even if data doesn’t support that differences or changes are significant.

Sean Van Sommeran: Concerned about rays and sharks because they utilize Parsons for reproduction. He is cautiously optimistic about the effects of the sill.

John Haskins: Happy that this project is a learning experience.

Rikke Preisler: We need more monitoring funds and people.

Shirley: Sill effects on shorebird abundances. Had observed a relatively low number of ducks but recently observed an abundance that she felt better about.