The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency has awarded Dudek and its subsidiary, Habitat Restoration Sciences (HRS), the Best in Basin award for the firm’s work restoring Lower Blackwood Creek.
Restoring native habitat was needed to correct over a century of disturbance that severely degraded the creek, a critical spawning area for rainbow trout living in Lake Tahoe and historically a habitat for Lahontan Cutthroat Trout and other native species.
Annual creek flows had caused heavy bank erosion and vegetation loss and a previous in-channel gravel mining operation increased sediment delivery to Lake Tahoe. The Blackwood Creek watershed contributed more than 21.5 tons of fine sediment per square kilometer per year: more fine sediment per unit of area than any other watershed in the Tahoe Basin.
The restoration project was designed to minimize fine sediment loading into the lake, and restore and improve stream habitat, water quality, and channel stability for the creek. Water clarity in Lake Tahoe has been a concern for a number of years and this project is the final piece of a comprehensive interagency restoration effort within the Blackwood Creek watershed. The restoration is a project of California Tahoe Conservancy, and contracted through the State of California Department of General Services. The construction work was conducted by Dudek’s construction subsidiary Habitat Restoration Sciences (HRS).
Read more on Dudek’s Blog.