Better fish habitat, clearer hiking paths are coming soon to Oakdale stretch of Stanislaus
A crew has begun to reshape some of the Stanislaus River’s banks in east Oakdale to enhance fish habitat.
The $2.7 million project along Kerr Park also will reduce thorny vines and other non-native plants that hinder hikers.
The city got state and federal grants for the work, aimed mainly at salmon and steelhead trout. The public is barred from this part of the park until the expected Nov. 15 completion.
City officials and fishery experts gathered for a ceremonial groundbreaking Tuesday morning. The actual earth-moving started a day earlier under a contract with Ford Construction Co. of Lodi.
Kerr is one of Oakdale’s most popular parks, with ball fields, picnic tables and shade trees in its upper portion. Visitors who venture down to the river find thickets of introduced plants such as Himalayan blackberry and tree of heaven.
The invaders will give way to oaks, willows, cottonwoods and other native plants.
“Hopefully, the public can come out and do some wildlife viewing and bird watching and not be stopped by this wall of blackberries,” project consultant Jesse Anderson said. He is a senior biologist for Cramer Fish Sciences, based in Portland, Ore., and lives in the Oakdale area.
Past gravel mining harmed fish
The fishery work will not be in the main channel of the Stanislaus, but in side channels damaged by decades of gravel mining. The industry left mounds of dirt on a floodplain that ideally is flatter, said J. D. Wikert, a Lodi-based habitat restoration coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The restoration will provide shallow, shaded areas where baby fish can develop. The eggs are laid by adult fish returning after a few years in the Pacific Ocean.
The project will be on 22 acres on the south side of a roughly 4,000-foot river stretch. The contractor will move about 54,800 cubic yards of earth around the site, protecting mature trees that survived the mining era.
The East Stanislaus Resource Conservation District will help with the seedling planting. The excavated soil will be seeded with native grasses and wildflowers.
In some spots, old trees will uprooted and laid down along the side channels. This mimics the circle of life: Insects and other small creatures decompose the wood. They in turn are prey for salmon and other larger animals.
The roads for construction access will become hiking trails. Motor vehicles will not be allowed in this part of Kerr, other than emergency responders.
The project launched in 2019 with a $338,536 grant for initial design from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The federal agency added $359,000 in 2021 for further planning. The Oakdale City Council on Sept. 18 accepted an additional $2.04 million in federal funding for the construction.
Work will aid with wildfire risk, homeless camps
City officials have said controlling the invasive plants will ease the wildfire risk and help police to deal with homeless camps and other issues.
“We just found that the more people that can come to public areas, the less likelihood for activities that we don’t want to occur,” City Manager Bryan Whitemyer said.
The riverside portion of Kerr is known as the Stanley Wakefield Wilderness Area. It was named for a deceased publisher of the Oakdale Leader newspaper.
The Stanislaus arises high in the central Sierra Nevada but is much reduced as it reaches Oakdale. Most of the water is stored in New Melones Reservoir for use by the Oakdale and South San Joaquin irrigation districts and the federal Central Valley Project.
These users support habitat projects such as Kerr Park as an alternative to the greatly increased river flows sought by environmental groups.
