Field Tour Coordinator: Kevin Swift, Swiftwater Design

 

This full-day field tour will highlight process-based restoration (PBR) efforts taking place at the 7,5000 acre Paicines Ranch in San Benito County. Since 2001, Paicines Ranch has been working with natural systems to regenerate the ranch ecosystem while producing food, fuel, and fiber, much of which is sold locally, helping to create a resilient local food system.

 

For more than a decade, Paicines Ranch owner Sallie Calhoun and partners have been laying the groundwork to restore the upper reach of this imperiled river that once supported steelhead trout. Key strategies include holistic livestock management and focusing on restoring natural river processes. 

 

The San Benito River runs approximately 7 miles southwest to northeast down the middle of the ranch. The river is dammed approximately 60 miles upstream at Hernandez Dam, built in the 1930s to provide flood protection. The river is silt-laden and despite the dam can experience large spring flows.

 

In 2024 Paicines Ranch hired Swift Water Design to install a 30-structure PBR build to provide significant water quality and hydrologic benefits to the river system and ranch ecosystem.

 

A couple miles upstream of the build there was a sudden geomorphic change in the 2022/2023 winter. In 3 days a 12 foot deep, 2-acre section of pasture mobilized, cutting through an oxbow and dewatering a mile of stream. This dramatic change provides an opportunity to consider various restoration techniques, including taking no action, and their likely effects on the evolution of the channel and surrounding vegetation.

 

In this tour we will get an introduction to the principles of PBR and how using local materials and hand tools can effect geomorphic and biologic changes within the riverscape. We will learn about the potential for integrating PBR into a working ranch, Paicines’ grazing practices and the changes in land-use and vegetation over time. 

 

Potential discussions include: what it took for a novice to permit the project, how to rapidly respond to drastic site condition change between design and implementation, the potential for using road crossings as restoration measures, beaver reintroduction site selection, statewide beaver restoration updates, build challenges of sand bed systems (significant), water quality issues, navigating complex neighbor relations, and more.