Page 14 - Sonoma County Gazette January 2017

WATER cont’d from page 1
Historically rivers like the Russian River provided valuable “ecosystem services” to the community that we’ve lost almost entirely. Ecosystem services are services valuable to people that healthy natural systems provide for free and are worth millions to billions of dollars. Ecosystem services are things such as food for juvenile salmon, natural flood protection, groundwater recharge, water purification and climate regulation. Today we know those ecosystem services have been greatly diminished or lost before the word ecosystem services was first used.
How did we lose potentially Billions of dollars worth of free
natural services? Simple, we cut the River off from spreading on to its floodplain during the rain season because of channelization, mining and thousands of dams large and small. These actions have resulted in the river’s bed down-cutting or incising up to 25 feet in some parts of the Russian River. The graphic below illustrates this dynamic by showing the riverbed elevation in the 1940’s and today.
A cross section view of the lowered riverbed and groundwater storage
At the same time as we have dropped the elevation of the bottom of the river, we have straightened and simplified the river and many tributaries with bulldozers. This river engineering eliminated the old river meanders, wetlands and about 80% or more of the area the river used to occupy. The aerial view graphic of the river in 1942 and in 2005 below shows that the Russian River lost 75% of the former river area, just between Healdsburg and Wolher Bridge in Forestville. Put in other terms we have put the Russian River into a strait jacket that is 3 sizes too small and turned the Russian River into a simple ditch with trees on the sides. We have a car with no motor for a river.
14 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 1/17
River Channels
Why is a straight deep channel a problem? It certainly provides more land for development for farming and other land uses. The reality is the loss of river area comes at a steep price – steeper than the hottest selling pinot now grown where the river used to be. Back in 1942, when the river rose it spread out and moved pollutants like silt into seasonally flooded areas where it wouldn’t harm fish
or drinking water sources. In 1942 the spreading river would spread out and slow down and recharge our groundwater. This also provided natural flood control in slowing down water and spreading it out, today it all goes straight to Guerneville and increases flood heights rather then be temporarily stored in the floodplains.
From Healdsburg to Wohler Bridge, our River occupied 3,257 acres. By 2005 river shrank 75% to 807 acres – no room for floods or sh.
WATER cont’d on page 15