Feather River Research Articles

Exploring Reinvestment from a Community-Based Watershed Perspective

Summary Increasingly, urban and rural communities across the U.S. are looking at ecological systems as capital assets with values that are diminishing as they are degraded. Investments are needed so they can continue to provide ecological services critical to the environmental, social, and economic well-being of the communities. This paper explores “reinvestment” as term encouraging the development of mechanisms for sustained and long-term investment in “natural capital,” as well as the other forms of capital on which communities and society depend. It raises important questions on which there are information gaps, such as the value of ecological services, the level of investment needed to restore and maintain ecological systems, the activities to which investment dollars should be allocated, and where public and private investment dollars might come from. These questions are discussed at national, regional, and local scales, focusing on water-an ecological resource with immense value that connects ecosystems and communities at many scales. The paper presents lessons and reinvestment mechanisms from studies in California's Sierra Nevada ecosystem and community-based efforts in its northernmost drainage, the Feather River watershed.

Build It And They Will Come: A Reexamination of the California State Water Project

Research Article| April 01 1998 Build It And They Will Come: A Reexamination of the California State Water Project Martin A. Nie Martin A. Nie Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Southern California Quarterly (1998) 80 (1): 71–88. https://doi.org/10.2307/41171881 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Martin A. Nie; Build It And They Will Come: A Reexamination of the California State Water Project. Southern California Quarterly 1 April 1998; 80 (1): 71–88. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/41171881 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentSouthern California Quarterly Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1998 Historical Society of Southern California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Old Wine Into New Bottles: Responses To New Approaches In Library Education

Library schools historically have paid little attention to paradigm shifts in society. They have been slow to change their curricula in meaningful ways, and their leaders have not paid enough attention to forces from the external social environment. The limited theoretical foundation for librarianship leaves librarians without a clear sense of future direction. Five themes related to improving library education were proposed and discussed at the Feather River Institute held in May 1997. 1. Librarians lack a strong sense of identity. 2. The profession of librarianship lacks an adequate body of underlying theory. 3. Library schools and the library profession have been weak in regulating themselves. 4. Library schools have been slow to respond to technological changes. 5. The time is ripe for major changes in the curricula of library schools.

Are you ready for El Niño?

I live outside the city limits of Woodland and Davis, California, on a small family farm with our six horses. In January of 1997, the largest evacuation of people in the recent history of California took place 20 miles north of my house when a levee broke on the Feather River. Sixty thousand people underwent immediate evacuation and were unable to return to their property for three to 14 days, some even longer. Many horse owners were unprepared to load their horses within the short time available and were forced to leave without their livestock. Unfortunately, many animals, including horses, died as a result of drowning, being trapped in submerged objects, and due to pneumonia, wounds, hypothermia and shock. I had no disaster plan for my home or my animals. Fortunately, we were unaffected by the floods. However, the experience of entering the flood zone, seeing the plight of the animals left behind and treating and caring for the animal victims, was a wake-up call to me as a veterinarian and a horse owner. I have written some suggestions and comments to help horse owners be more prepared for a similar situation this winter. Each owner's situation will vary and these suggestions should not be the limit of preparedness or considAuthor's address: Dept of Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 or omer alsaster, m an emergency, you may find there is no one to help you. You may not be able to find anything you need, what you have is broken or inadequate and you may not have access to needed supplies for you or your horses.

PESTICIDES AND PESTICIDE DEGRADATION PRODUCTS IN STORMWATER RUNOFF: SACRAMENTO RWER BASIN, CALIFORNIA1

ABSTRACT: Pesticides in stormwater runoff, within the Sacramento River Basin, California, were assessed during a storm that occurred in January 1994. Two organophosphate insecticides (diazinon and methidathion), two carbamate pesticides (molinate and carbofuran), and one triazine herbicide (simazine) were detected. Organophosphate pesticide concentrations increased with the rising stage of the hydrographs; peak concentrations were measured near peak discharge. Diazinon oxon, a toxic degradation product of diazinon, made up approximately 1 to 3 percent of the diazinon load. The Feather River was the principal source of organophosphate pesticides to the Sacramento River during this storm. The concentrations of molinate and carbofuran, pesticides applied to rice fields during May and June, were relatively constant during and after the storm. Their presence in surface water was attributed to the flooding and subsequent drainage, as a management practice to degrade rice stubble prior to the next planting. A photo‐degradation product of molinate, 4‐keto molinate, was in all samples where molinate was detected and made up approximately 50 percent of the total molinate load. Simazine, a herbicide used in orchards and to control weeds along the roadways, was detected in the storm runoff, but it was not possible to differentiate the two sources of that pesticide to the Sacramento River.

Numerical Modeling for Sediment-Pass-Through Reservoirs

Sediment accumulation in reservoirs on the North Fork Feather River will soon affect hydroelectric power generation. For sediment control, low-level outlets through the dams have been considered to allow Sediment-Pass-Through (SPT) the reservoirs. The objective of SPT is to maintain sediment balance through the reservoirs with no net erosion or deposition over an extended operating cycle. The velocity required for bed sediment to pass through a reservoir will be achieved by reservoir level drawdown during large floods. A numerical modeling study, using FLUVIAL-12, was made to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of SPT for the system. The study developed the following features: (1) rating curves that specify the reservoir drawdown in relation to the changing discharge; and (2) reservoir operation rules that specify the operational procedure and settings for control gates. Simulated results are presented to demonstrate that mass balance for the river/reservoir system can be achieved, without adverse siltation in the river channel to affect fish spawning. This approach for reservoir sediment control should be useful for similar problems.

Lost in Space: Minimum Confidence Intervals for Idealized PHABSIM Studies

Abstract The physical habitat simulation model (PHABSIM) produces curves showing the relation between flow and habitat that are often used as evidence for decisions on the management of water resources. The curves show values of “weighted usable area” (WUA) over discharge. Minimum confidence intervals for the curves can be developed with the bootstrap method if transects are randomly located within sampling units. This is illustrated with bootstrap simulations that develop minimum confidence intervals for several model rivers, defined in terms of sampling procedures and values of WUA for juvenile chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha at 15 transects on the Feather River, California. The simulations show that the chance location of transects in PHABSIM studies can introduce such great uncertainty into the resulting curves of WUA over discharge that the curves can be meaningless. Therefore, it is crucial that confidence intervals be developed for curves of WUA over discharge before PHABSIM results are pre...

Conference report third annual feather river institute May 28–31, 1992

Conference report third annual feather river institute May 28–31, 1992

*Starting Out - Yoga for Beginners Video – The Yoga Journal *Stretch and Surrender – Annalisa Cunningham *Yoga - Practicing Postures – An Easy-to-do Workbook – Connie Weiss

*Let's be honest from the beginning. I do not like yoga videos. Perhaps I am hopelessly old-fashioned; but I simply believe that yoga is best taught in that dynamic relationship between student and teacher - live. However, I am also a practical person. *For Annalisa Cunningham, author of Stretch and Surrender : a Guide to Yoga, Health, and Relaxation for People in Recovery, a combination of Hatha Yoga with the Twelve Step philosophy has opened the way to recovery. As a counselor at Feather River Alcohol and Chemical Recovery Program in California, Cunningham developed a yoga program for patients, family members, and the community at large. *Connie Weiss has been teaching yoga classes for over twenty years. She has been influenced by Indra Devi, the Iyengar tradition, and, most recently, by T.K.V. Desikachar and Professor A.G. Mohan. In response to the needs of her students she has put together an excellent manual for people of all levels "to facilitate individual practice sessions."

The uplift of the Sierra Nevada and implications for late Cenozoic epeirogeny in the western Cordillera

Tilted Cenozoic strata in the eastern Great Valley, California, record progressive late Cenozoic uplift of the Sierra Nevada. The magnitude of tilting is combined with other geologic data, using a technique pioneered by Grant and others, to infer the rate and timing of post-late Miocene uplift between the Kings River and the Feather River. Angular unconformities of late Neogene age have been reported throughout the east-central Great Valley. Typically, stratigraphic units of late Oligocene through Miocene-Pliocene age beneath the unconformities dip approximately 1.2°-1.6° southwest. Middle to late Pliocene units above the unconformities dip approximately 0.6°-0.9° southwest and progressively overlap younger units from east to west. These angular unconformities are interpreted to represent the onset of late Cenozoic uplift of the Sierra Nevada due to westward tilting. Dated volcaniclastic units in the east-central Sacramento Valley bracket the onset of tilting there between 3.4 and 8.4 Ma. Stratigraphic and geologic relations from the Stanislaus River area, eastern San Joa-quin Valley, suggest that the late Cenozoic tilting probably began approximately 5 Ma. Previously published tilt data from the San Joaquin Valley combined with new work in the eastern Sacramento Valley indicate that the rate of post-late Miocene tilting has been approximately uniform in the east-central Great Valley. Early to middle Pleistocene units typically dip 0.5°-0.7° southwest; middle Pleistocene units dip 0.2°-0.4°; middle to late Pleistocene units dip 0.1°-0.15°; late Pleistocene units dip 0.05°-0.1°. If it is assumed that major westward tilting began 5 Ma, these data indicate an approximately uniform tilting rate of 0.28° per million years. These data have important implications for models of the uplift. Simultaneous inception of tilting in the east-central Great Valley at approximately 5 Ma does not support models that link uplift of the Sierra Nevada to the migration of the Mendocino triple junction. Late Cenozoic tilting of the Sierra Nevada block does not appear to coincide temporally with the onset of major Basin and Range extension. The uplift may be due to thinning of the mantle lithosphere beneath the Sierra Nevada, but the tilt data do not afford a direct test of this hypothesis. Post-late Miocene tilting of the Sierra Nevada is temporally associated with late Cenozoic uplift of the northern Basin and Range, uplift of the Cascades, uplift of the Colorado Plateau, and uplift of the southern Rocky Mountains, supporting the contention that tilting of the Sierra Nevada may have occurred as part of a Cordillera-wide uplift event.

Sampling stochastic dynamic programming applied to reservoir operation

Most models for reservoir operation optimization have employed either deterministic optimization or stochastic dynamic programming algorithms. This paper develops sampling stochastic dynamic programming (SSDP), a technique that captures the complex temporal and spatial structure of the streamflow process by using a large number of sample streamflow sequences. The best inflow forecast can be included as a hydrologic state variable to improve the reservoir operating policy. A case study using the hydroelectric system on the North Fork of the Feather River in California illustrates the SSDP approach and its performance.

Curved slickenfibers: a new brittle shear sense indicator with application to a sheared serpentinite

Brittle fault zones are commonly characterized by penetrative fracturing of the rock to form an aggregate of blocks, so that the rock becomes, in essence, like a granular material composed of rigid ‘grains’. The surfaces of the blocks, or ‘grains’, have a wide distribution of orientations, and shearing of the blocks past one another on these planes accommodates the large-scale motion, i.e. the macromotion, in the fault zone. During a macromotion that is a non-coaxial deformation, the rigid blocks and their surfaces may undergo a progressive rigid rotation that is distinct from the macromotion and is described by the microspin. If a macroscopic non-coaxial deformation has monoclinic symmetry, this symmetry should be reflected in the sense of rigid rotation of the blocks and their surfaces. On the surfaces of the blocks, which are local shear planes, the history of displacement may be recorded by mineral fibers that grow progessively with displacement. Because of the rigid rotation of the local shear planes, slickenfiber lineations commonly are curved. The sense of curvature from the youngest to the oldest part of the fiber, looking down the normal to the local shear plane, is different for those planes whose normals are on opposite sides of the unique monoclinic symmetry plane for the macroscopic shearing. The intersection of the symmetry plane with the plane of the fault zone defines the macroscopic slip direction, and the sense of rigid rotation of the local shear planes determined from the lineations defines the shear sense. Application of this technique to the disrupted and sheared margins of the Feather River Peridotite in the northern Sierra Nevada of California indicates that late deformation involved dextral-normal oblique slip along the Melones fault zone.

Pooled time‐series cross‐section travel cost models: Testing whether recreation behavior is stable over time

Abstract An extension of the travel cost method (TCM) from previous reliance on solely cross‐section data to utilization of pooled time‐series cross‐section data is developed and implemented. The extension is illustrated by estimating recreational fishing demand on the North Fork of the Feather River in California. Using this 5‐year data set, a test for structural change in the TCM demand parameters was conducted and the parameters were found to be unstable over the 5‐year period. This indicates that recreation visitation behavior may not be stable over the 5‐year time period. Econometric issues associated with pooling time‐series and cross‐section data are also evaluated. The precision of present value estimates of future benefits is discussed.

Terranes, early faults, and pre-Late Jurassic amalgamation of the western Sierra Nevada metamorphic belt, California

The western Sierra Nevada metamorphic belt is subdivided into six tectonic terranes, which are juxtaposed along mostly cryptic, pre-Late Jurassic faults. The Northern Sierra terrane contains a basement of imbricated and locally chaotic lower Paleozoic quartz sandstone, mafic rocks, chert, argillite, and other rocks, overlain unconformably by Upper Devonian-Middle Jurassic volcanic and siliceous strata. The Feather River terrane is a Paleozoic, possibly polygenetic ophiolite. The Red Ant terrane is a small terrane with an early Mesozoic blueschist-facies overprint. The Calaveras terrane is a chaotic assemblage of upper Paleozoic-Triassic argillite, chert, volcanic rock, and limestone contained in two regionally mapped melange units. The Tuolumne River terrane is a stratigraphic assemblage of disrupted Paleozoic ophiolite overlain by Middle Triassic-Lower Jurassic siliceous and volcanic strata, both intruded by 200 Ma (Lower Jurassic) plutons. The Slate Creek terrane is a 200 Ma pseudostratigraphic sequence of cumulate ultramafic, plutonic, and volcanic rocks. The Northern Sierra and Calaveras terranes contain Permian McCloud fossils, whereas the Tuolumne River terrane contains Permian McCloud and Tethyan fossils in olistoliths within lower Mesozoic deposits. These terranes are bounded mostly by steeply dipping faults of the Late Jurassic Foothills fault system but locally are juxtaposed along earlier, highly deformed, low-angle faults that are remnants of major terrane-bounding faults. A system of early, mostly cryptic, east-dipping faults juxtapose, in descending structural order, the Northern Sierra, Feather River, Red Ant, Calaveras, and Tuolumne River terranes. Each of the four boundaries that separate these five terranes have three or more independent pre-Late Jurassic upper age brackets, including crosscutting plutons, sedimentary provenance, and shared structural fabrics. The Slate Creek terrane tectonically overlies the Tuolumne River, Calaveras, and Red Ant terranes along an isoclinally folded, west-dipping fault that is cut by a 165 Ma pluton. Callovian-Kimmeridgian strata and coeval intrusive rocks, including the 155-165 Ma volcanic rocks, sheeted dikes, and zoned mafic plutons of the Smartville Complex, are deposited on and intruded into the older, previously juxtaposed terranes and constitute an overlap sequence. The well-known faults of the Foothills fault system, including the Melones fault, cut Kimmeridgian strata of the overlap sequence and thus cannot include ancient sutures. These faults reactivated many of the earlier terrane-bounding faults. Pre-Late Jurassic amalgamation of the Sierra Nevada metamorphic belt rules out previous models of Late Jurassic arc-continent collision; earlier collisions and/or noncollisional tectonic processes must be invoked to explain strong contractional deformation in the western Sierra Nevada metamorphic belt.

U/Pb, Sm/Nd and Rb/Sr geochronological and isotopic study of northern Sierra Nevada ophiolitic assemblages, California

Distinct ophiolitic assemblages occur as oceanic basement within three of the four regional tectonic belts of the northern Sierra Nevada. New U/Pb zircon, Sm/Nd and Rb/Sr data are presented for each assemblage, providing critical geochronological and isotopic constraints on the petrogenesis and tectonic evolution of the ophiolitic and associated ensimatic assemblages. Ophiolitic assemblages include from west to east the Smartville complex, Central belt and Feather River belt. The Smartville complex represents an island arc volcanic-plutonic sequence with a major late-stage sheeted dike swarm. The Sm/Nd systems from a wide compositional spectrum of rocks record a 178±21 Ma petrogenetic age and an ɛNd(T)=+9.2±0.6. Zircon U/Pb systems on an uppermost dacite yield a 164±2 Ma age, and on a number of plagiogranite screens and dikes from the sheeted complex 162±1 Ma ages. The Central and Feather River belts are structurally complex polygenetic assemblages. The U/Pb zircon and Sm/Nd systems record major ∼205 Ma and ∼315 Ma petrogenetic events respectively both involving depleted mantle derived magmas. Such magmatism probably occurred in marginal basin/transform systems developed within an older oceanic depleted mantle basement regime. Both Sm/Nd and U/Pb zircon systems show local components of Proterozoic sialic material. The sialic contaminants were probably introduced into the system as craton derived detritus. It is doubtful that any of the ophiolitic assemblages studied represent genetically related crust-upper mantle sequences generated during the development of new oceanic lithosphere. Integration of the geochronological data with geological relations reveals a pattern of petrogenesis and tectonics whereby progressively younger ensimatic terranes were added to the continental margin through time by plate convergence, and were ultimately welded into North American sial by a crosscutting batholithic belt. This accretionary pattern is reflected in both the protolith ages and deformation-metamorphic ages of each of the regional belts which progressively young westward. Crustal components of the accreted ensimatic terranes grew by mainly basaltic igneous activity within island arc, marginal basin and leaky transform systems adjacent to the continent edge prior to final tectonic accretion. Such complexities are suggested to be typical of Cordilleran-type ophiolites and representative of the circum-Pacific erogenic style.

Indians of the Feather River: Tales and Legends of the Concow Maidu of California

Indians of the Feather River: Tales and Legends of the Concow Maidu of California

Flushing flow recommendations for maintenance of salmonid spawning gravels in a steep, regulated stream

AbstractA study was conducted to develop flushing flow recommendations for maintaining the quantity of salmonid spawning gravels in the North Fork of the Feather River, a regulated stream in California, U.S.A. This required the development of a technique which would prescribe flows to remove sediments from the gravels without removing the gravels themselves, which are in finite supply in the river.Field studies involved the use of a ‘two‐point‐are’ procedure which allowed depth, velocity, and substrate measurements to be concentrated over spawning gravels at each site. Measurements were repeated at each site at three different flows ranging from 1.7 to 11.3 m3 s−1. The local velocity and depth measurements were used to evaluate hydraulic conditions within areas containing spawning gravels. Four flow levels were derived which would provide varying degrees of sediment transport and flushing; (1) surficial flushing of gravels; (2) mobilization of gravels; (3) surficial flushing of cobbles; and (4) mobilization of cobbles.Results of the study indicated a flushing flow of 56.6 m3 s−1 occurring as a planned release or natural flow for from 1–3 days would be sufficient to transport sediment from spawning gravels. This flow was intermediate to levels which maximize surficial gravel flushing and levels which maximize surficial cobble flushing.

Genetic and phenotypic population structure of the Coenonympha tullia complex (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) in California: no evidence for species boundaries

Decisions regarding species status of taxa showing geographic replacement are explicit hypotheses about population structure. The structure of 21 populations of the Coenonympha tullia group from northern California, southwestern Oregon, and northern Nevada was analyzed for evidence of reproductive isolation. These samples included five subspecies (california, eryngii, ampelos, eunomia, and mono) nominally placed in three species (california, ampelos, and ochracea). We found very high intra- and inter-population variability in the "diagnostic" wing pattern characters used by previous authors. There is evidence of intergradation between eryngii and eunomia in southwestern Oregon, and between california and ampelos in the eastern Feather River drainage in California. A complex cline involving California, eryngii, and ampelos occurs in the Pit River drainage of northeastern California. The taxon mono appears distinct, apparently because of an absence of Coenonympha populations in the expected mono–ampelos contact area. Electrophoretic analysis of the same 21 populations showed very high intrapopulation genetic variability (expected heterozygosity = 13.5–20.4%, percentage of polymorphic loci (most common allele < 99%) = 35.5–58.8%; 14 alleles at the locus for phosphoglucose isomerase (one population with 11 alleles)). However, interpopulation (geographic) variability was extremely low. Standardized genetic variance among populations (FST, using Wright's formulation) in contact zones indicates that gene flow is probably uninterrupted between the subspecies california, eryngii, ampelos, and eunomia. FST values for the isocitrate dehydrogenase locus indicate that present-day gene flow is probably unimportant in maintaining similarity between ampelos and mono. The genetic population structure is reminiscent of highly vagile colonizing species, but this may be largely historical, due to post-Pleistocene range changes rather than high present-day interpopulation migration rates. We conclude that all California populations are conspecific. Only the subspecies mono is clearly separated from the others, at the level 0.034 (Nei's unbiased distance), approximating that of weak subspecies in other taxa. The North American entities should all be provisionally classified as subspecies of the holarctic species tullia unless evidence is found to support their separation.

Review: Indians of the Feather River: Tales and Legends of Concow Maidu of California, by Donald P. Jewell

Book Review| June 01 1988 Review: Indians of the Feather River: Tales and Legends of Concow Maidu of California, by Donald P. Jewell Indians of the Feather River: Tales and Legends of Concow Maidu of CaliforniaDonald P. Jewell Lee Davis Lee Davis Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar California History (1988) 67 (2): 138–139. https://doi.org/10.2307/25177254 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Lee Davis; Review: Indians of the Feather River: Tales and Legends of Concow Maidu of California, by Donald P. Jewell. California History 1 June 1988; 67 (2): 138–139. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/25177254 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCalifornia History Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1988 CHS Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

An Approach for Frequency Analysis of Multiyear Drought Durations

A practical approach is developed for frequency analysis of multiyear drought durations of annual streamflow series. The proposed approach utilizes a technique which smooths the frequency‐curve irregularity of drought durations and, therefore, reduces the statistical uncertainties associated with sample‐size limitations. Several hazard‐function models are examined with regard to their ability to represent the duration‐dependent termination rate of a drought data set. The logistic model with an exponential correction for short durations is considered to have sufficient flexibility for describing most portions of the termination‐rate function. The parameters of the logistic model are identified using a piecewise linear regression for the linearized termination probability curve. Once the form of the hazard model is specified arid its parameters are estimated, the probability distribution and exceedance probability of drought durations can be determined from their corresponding relationships with the hazard model. The historic droughts of Feather River, California, are used to demonstrate the methodology. Results indicate that the observed nine‐year drought of Feather River has a return period of 360 years.