The Upper Salinas-Las Tablas Resource Conservation District (US-LT RCD) is pleased to announce it has received a $653,250 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to restore the habitat on a portion of Santa Rosa Creek in Cambria. This project is innovative because it seeks to address an infrastructure problem in a way that benefits wildlife habitat.  A portion of Santa Rosa Creek Road is at risk of falling in to Santa Rosa Creek as a result of streambank erosion.  The County of San Luis Obispo approached the US-LT RCD looking for solutions to this possible road failure, and the US-LT RCD saw this as an opportunity to not only repair the conditions affecting the road but also to restore critical steelhead spawning habitat.

The US-LT RCD is a hub, bringing together resources to accomplish environmental stewardship goals in our community, and the Santa Rosa Creek Habitat Restoration Project is a perfect example of this.  Working with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the County of San Luis Obispo, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and a local landowner, the US-LT RCD is bringing together various funding partners and landowners to achieve multiple goals to benefit the community.

The US-LT RCD has been actively searching for grant funding since the engineered plans for this project were completed in 2016. After three years of searching and multiple unsuccessful applications, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation stepped up to help remedy the situation on Santa Rosa Creek. Partners, including the County of San Luis Obispo and the Pacific Gas and Electric company, have contributed an additional $266,073 to the project, bringing the total cost of the project to $919,323. The US-LT RCD is in the permitting phase of the project and plans to break ground by late summer of 2020.

For more information, please contact US-LT RCD Project Manager Spencer Gordon at Spencer@us-ltrcd.org