Background
A growing number of landowners in Yolo County are interested in restoring or enhancing the natural resources of their property.  However, current regulatory review processes that are intended to protect natural values often act as disincentives to voluntary efforts to reduce nonpoint source pollution and enhance habitat. Through the Yolo County Permit Coordination Program, the YCRCD/NRCS will work directly with landowners to promote voluntary actions that will improve water quality and wildlife habitat values. By selecting conservation and restoration practices suitable for coordinated review, the permit coordination program will help existing, successful, voluntary conservation projects reach their full potential. This program is developed with significant guidance and support from Sustainable Conservation.

Resource Issues
Yolo County watersheds have experienced water quality problems and a reduction in the quality and quantity of riparian habitat capable of fully supporting wildlife due to noxious invasive weeds, discontinuous channel vegetation, sedimentation, and bank erosion.  This program seeks to reduce in-channel populations of noxious weeds (esp. Arundo donax and Tamarix parviflora) and minimize sedimentation through integrated vegetation management, native revegetation, erosion control, and small stream floodplain restoration.

General Description of Program
The 5-year program is based on a model of coordinated, multi-agency regulatory review developed by Sustainable Conservation and RCDs on the California Central Coast. The program ensures the integrity of agency mandates but makes permitting more accessible to farmers and ranchers than the traditional process. Through the program, regulatory agencies issue permits to the YCRCD/NRCS that cover projects on private lands provided landowners work under the supervision and sponsorship of the YCRCD and/or NRCS. The YCRCD and NRCS will decide each year which of the season’s proposed construction projects will meet with the environmental protection limitations of the permits and select those for the permit coordination program.  The following types of projects are not covered by the permit coordination program:

• Projects by private landowners not working with the Yolo County RCD and NRCS.
• Projects that cannot fulfill the environmental protection measures established in the permitting process.
• Projects of any type other than the two named conservation practices listed below.

Conservation & Restoration Practices Included in the Program

 
Geographic Scope
Yolo County rural lands encompass approximately 800 square miles (500,000 acres). The program area covers the watersheds of two creeks— Putah and Cache; several sloughs (including Willow Slough and its tributaries) as well as smaller, unnamed creeks leading directly to the Sacramento River. This permit coordination program covers all portions of these watersheds that lie within Yolo County, other than areas specifically excluded (below).

Areas that have been determined to be particularly sensitive by regulators are excluded from the program area. These include:

• Vernal pool lands in eastern Yolo County.
• Tidally-influenced wetlands and waters.
• Any portion of watershed lands outside of Yolo County boundaries.
• The channel and banks of the Sacramento River and Putah Creek.

In the Willow Slough Watershed, we estimate restoring 1-2 sites (¼ - 1 mile) per year of channelized streams. In Capay Valley (and portions of Willow Slough and tributaries), we estimate conducting noxious weed removal and habitat restoration on up to 100 riparian acres per year. Biotechnical bank protection projects are estimated at 1-2 sites (0.1 – 0.2 mile) per year.