Delta Levee Restoration Program

The Sacramento- San Joaquin Delta is the largest freshwater tidal estuary of its kind on the West Coast of the Americas. This tidal estuary is where freshwater from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers meets tidal flows and flows through the Carquinez Strait into the San Francisco Bay. An important stopping ground for birds along the Pacific Flyway, the Delta is also the hub of California’s two largest surface water delivery projects: the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Providing drinking water for 29 million people and irrigation water for a massive portion of the state’s $50 billion ag industry, the Delta is a 700-mile maze of sloughs and waterways surrounding over 60 islands and leveed tracts.

Yolo County RCD conducts long-term habitat management activities at habitat enhancement and mitigation sites under The Department of Water Resource (DWR)’s Delta Levee Program in coordination with DWR, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and other regional RCDs (Solano RCD, Contra Costa RCD, and San Joaquin RCD). Along sloughs, islands, and levees in the Delta, YCRCD conducts weed mapping and monitoring activities and performs invasive weed control and revegetation. Notably, Yolo County RCD works to remove pampas grass (Cortaderia jubata), Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus), poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), yellowflag iris (Iris pseudacorus), and alligatorweed (Alternanthera philoxeroides)), replacing them with regionally appropriate Delta- ecotype native plants like mugwort, goldenrod, marsh baccharis, California wild grape, California blackberry, California wild rose, evening primrose, and more!