I just came across this project paper in our Salix archives – thought it was worth sharing.  At the turn of the century, San Jose CA was one of the fastest-growing regions – read “uber-urbanization”.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District has had some HUGE challenges over several decades – challenges to reduce flooding, recharge the aquifers, and simultaneously restore aquatic and salmonid habitat.  How does an agency restore stream function in deeply incised streams with no room to move horizontally because urbanization has encroached into the floodplains? 

The Guadalupe River is one such stream, running right through the middle of San Jose.  To prevent flooding the SCVWD once had a duty to reduce flooding armoring many miles of stream with sack concrete walls. 

This paper describes the challenges in achieving “Green Solutions”, agencies going “overboard” a bit by not allowing any rock once the concrete sacs had been removed and, most importantly, how it is imperative that TRMs are installed properly.