Floodplain Reconnection Projects

The Carmel River Floodplain Restoration and Environmental Enhancement Project (Carmel River FREE) is a small but highly visible project running along the Carmel River immediately south of the City of Carmel in Monterrey County, California.  The Big Sur Land Trust, working with Monterrey County and a variety of private and public funding partners, will restore and reconnect 100-acres of floodplain in the Carmel Valley at an estimated cost of $44 million.  The property was donated to the Trust by Clint and Margaret Eastwood, long time supporters of conservation.  Ground breaking is expected in 2024.

Fish habitat restoration is often a catalyst for floodplain reconnection along riverine ecosystems.  Nowhere is that more true than the Siuslaw River traversing central coastal Oregon west of Eugene.  The Siuslaw Coho Partnership is a large public-private working group convened to guide salmon habitat restoration in the 773 square-mile Siuslaw watershed.  The product of their collaboration is an ambitious 6-year watershed-scale restoration plan to restore 75 miles of instream habitat and 47 miles of riparian areas while reconnecting 506 acres of floodplain habitat and 30 miles of instream and slough habitat.  The $23 million project will be completed in stages over the coming decade.   

Dogtooth Bend is a peninsula in southern Illinois where the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers converge.  This primarily agricultural area has been subject to repeated levee failures and severe flooding.  The Nature Conservancy (TNC), working with landowners, NRCS, and other agencies and supported by Floodplains Forever, is reconnecting and restoring some 9,000 acres of floodplain in this area.  TNC is a leader in the field of floodplain reconnection. 

  This project, managed by the Puget Sound Partnership and funded by the Puget Sound Acquisition and Restoration (PSAR) Fund, involves the acquisition of approximately 700 acres of floodplain, riparian forest, and steep slopes along 4 miles of South Fork Nooksack River shoreline.  South Fork Nooksack River Integrated Floodplain Reconnection provides a unique opportunity to integrate forest management with adjacent floodplain ecosystems and ensure fully connected ecosystem and watershed function. The project will also facilitate removal of several hundred feet of historic levee along the left bank of the South Fork Nooksack River, reconnecting more than 130 acres of floodplain habitat. 

In 2019, Missouri suffered one of the most devastating floods in its history.   The Missouri River breached over 100 levees, inundating 1.2 million acres. Missouri River levee L-536, in Atchison and Holt Counties, was breached in 7 locations alone—and suffered significant damages.  In the aftermath, TNC, the Atchison County Levee District #1, NRCS, the USACE, and others came together to complete a levee setback project that added over 1,000 acres back to the floodplain.  This is a great model for levee setbacks nationally. 

 The Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership dedicates itself to protecting and enhancing ecosystems in the lower Columbia River in Washington and Oregon.  The Partnership's Steigerwald Floodplain Restoration Project is reconnecting and restoring some 965 acres of floodplain by removing about 2.2 miles of levees along the Columbia River and Gibbons Creek.  This is a great example of multiple agencies joining forces to let the river flood naturally -- restoring natural habitat and promoting recreational uses in the process.  

The 310-mile St. John's River is Florida's longest, and its 2,000-square mile upper basin is one of Florida's most important and distinctive ecosystems.  The basin originally contained some 400,000 acres of floodplain marsh, but by 1983 only 35% of the original floodplain remained due to nearly a century of agricultural development.  In 1977 the St. John's River Water Management District and the USACE embarked on an ambitious plan to revitalize the upper basin.  The project was completed over the course of the next 40 years (amazing) and is a model for the compatibility between flood control and environmental protection.  The 167,000-acre system of floodplain marshes can hold some 500,000 acre feet of water.  In 2016 this project was named "Project of the Century" by the Florida Engineering Society.         

In 1998, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) assisted U.S. Fish and Wildlife in the acquisition of Mollicy Farms, constituting 16,000 acres of farmland surrounded by 17 miles of 1970's-era levees along Louisiana’s Ouachita River.  With a little help from a major 2009 flood, the levees were systematically breached, reconnecting 25 square miles of land with its historic floodplain and adding vital habitat to the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge.  This remains one of the largest Mississippi River and U.S. floodplain reconnection projects ever completed.   

The California Department Water Resources has begun work on a 2,600-acre project in Yolo County, California (Sacramento) to relocate and set back some seven miles of the Lower Elkhorn Basin Levee along the Sacramento River, including the Yolo and Sacramento Bypasses.  The project will increase flooding safety for some 780,000 area residents and expand habitat and recreational opportunities.

River Partners acquired the 1,603-acre Dos Rios Ranch in 2012 with an eye towards restoring the fragile ecosystem along Toulumne and San Joaquin Rivers in Modesto, California.  By notching and removing portions of farm levees in 2018, roughly 1,000 acres of floodplain has been reconnected with the rivers.  River Partners also working on reconnecting another 1,361 acres of floodplain in Hamilton City north of Sacramento.  California's Floodplain Forward Coalition is advancing the cause of historical floodplain reconnection across the entire Sacramento River Basin from Redding all the way to Sacramento.

King County, Washington, which includes Seattle, has undertaken a multitude of projects throughout the county to reconnect floodplains to  rivers running across the County.  While no single project is huge, in aggregate they represent a major effort by a single agency to restore floodplains in a comprehensive manner.  There are too many projects to list here, but details can be found on the King County website.   

 Working in collaboration with local, state and federal interests, the Yuba Water Agency helped finance $46.6 million for the local cost-share of the six-mile-long setback levee along the Feather River. Completed in 2010 at an approximate cost of $160 million, the award-winning Feather River Setback Levee is one of the major projects to reduce flood risk in Yuba County.  The new levee created nearly 1,500 acres of riparian flood plain habitat for fish and wildlife species.