Coarsegold Resource Conservation District

Support: State Water Resources Control Board – Consolidated Nonpoint Source Pollution Control and Watershed Protection Grant (Prop. 13), $341,763.

Co-Principal Investigators: Robert Atwill and Kenneth W. Tate

Cooperators: University of California Davis, Natural Resource Conservation Service, University of California Cooperative Extension, USDA Forest Service-Pacific Southwest Research Station and California State University, Fresno.

Background and rationale: Reducing non-point source (NPS) pollution of California’s streams and rivers by pathogens, nutrients, and organic carbon from beef cattle grazing is a challenge for ranchers throughout the foothills of the southern Sierra Nevada. Both perennial and ephemeral streams draining this region of California can carry large amounts of NPS pollutants such as bacteria and other pathogens, particularly during winter rainstorms when fecal material from cattle may inadvertently be washed into surface water sources and transported downstream to the San Joaquin and Fresno Rivers. Successfully reducing this pollutant load remains technically difficult. Vegetated buffer strips (VBS) are being advocated by such agencies as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Natural Resource Conservation Service, California Regional Water Quality Control Boards, and the State Water Resources Control Board as a core strategy for reducing water quality impacts from NPS pollution from cattle grazing.

In order to better address NPS pollution problems occurring in the foothill regions of the southern Sierra Nevada, we are conducting a field demonstration project, technical assistance, and public education for implementing VBS on beef cattle ranches that have either perennial or seasonal streams. Installing VBS can quickly reduce NPS pollutant loading from rangeland runoff and increase water quality in foothill tributaries draining into the San Joaquin and Fresno Rivers, which are major tributaries of the southern section of the Delta.