Progress comes with Partnership
The Monterey water system is a complex blend of public-private collaborators that achieve exceptional work together. This past week highlighted the power of these partnerships in two major restoration projects. The first was the ten year celebration of the removal of the San Clemente Dam. The video here does a wonderful job of illustrating the collaboration of scientists, engineers, public agency, and private companies working together to achieve such an ambitious project. At the time, the dam removal project was the largest in California. Initially planned as an earthquake retrofit, environmental and public agencies asked whether removal would be a better plan. Although removal was close to 3 times the cost, federal, state, local and private funds came together to make it happen. Rather than simply fixing an aging dam, filled with silt, this partnership built a transformative renewal of the river ecosystem. The 10 anniversary video illustrates this exciting story.
Also last week the Carmel River Task Force, pictured above, toured another transformative project - the Rancho Cañada Floodplain Project at Palo Corona Park. The Rancho Cañada Floodplain Restoration Project transforms a former golf course into thriving riparian habitat for rare steelhead and other wildlife. This landscape-scale restoration reconnects the Carmel River to its historic floodplain while creating new recreational opportunities for the community. The scale of the project is breathtaking. This $35 million project brings together over 3 dozen organizations is led by the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District. By bringing the ground down to the level of the river and groundwater, the project increases the habitat area by 5-8x, will involve planting more than 4,000 lbs of native plant seed collected over the past two years, and help reduce the flooding-wildfire-drought cycle. The project has it’s own fascinating website here.
Our day-to-day water system in Monterey is also a deeply intertwined public-private partnership. Underneath the public-private debate are hardworking staff members from county, city, water districts, agencies, and private companies working together.