March 2001

For more information please contact:

Phillip Wallin, Western Rivers Conservancy 503-241-0151
Suzanne Gibbs, Big Chico Creek Watershed Alliance 530-342-3429

Packard Foundation Gives $1.5 Million to Support Chico Nature Preserve

Portland, OR - Western Rivers Conservancy, a land conservation program headquartered in Portland, announced today that it has been awarded a grant of $1,564,024 from the David & Lucile Packard Foundation of Los Altos, CA. The grant will help Western Rivers Conservancy purchase a 2,724-acre nature preserve along 2.5 miles of Big Chico Creek just east of Chico, California. The Big Chico Creek Research Area will be managed by the Research Foundation of California State University, Chico as habitat for endangered chinook salmon and steelhead, rare amphibians such as the foothill yellow-legged frog, and wildlife including black-tailed deer, mountain lion and black bear. The grant from the Packard Foundation also funds a management plan for the research area, to be developed under the leadership of the Big Chico Creek Watershed Alliance and the University. In 1997, Western Rivers Conservancy was asked by the Watershed Alliance to help them conserve the 2,724-acre Simmons Ranch, which includes a magnificent portion of Big Chico Creek Canyon, bordering Highway 32 ten miles east of Chico. The ranch adjoins Bidwell Park, the third largest municipal park in the United States, which is managed by the City of Chico. Phil Wallin, President of Western Rivers Conservancy, negotiated an agreement to purchase the ranch from its owners, Chico homebuilder Dan Drake and brothers Ed and Darwin Simmons. Once the agreement was signed, Western Rivers Conservancy began to search for sources of funding to make the new preserve a reality. The grant announced today takes them over halfway to their goal.

The Packard Foundation, located in Los Altos, CA, is a major funder of conservation initiatives in California. Created in 1964 by David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Company, and his wife Lucile Salter Packard, the Foundation provides grants to nonprofit organizations in the areas of conservation, population, science, children, arts, organizational effectiveness, and philanthropy. The grant for the Big Chico Creek purchase is part of Packard's five-year "Conserving California Landscapes Initiative." Under the initiative, which began last year, $175 million in grants and about $100 million in low-interest loans are to be awarded to preserve important natural areas in three sections of the state: the Central Coast, the Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada. The Foundation's assets are approximately $12 billion and it expects to make grants of $400 million in 1999.

Western Rivers Conservancy is a national non-profit group that was founded in 1988. Western Rivers Conservancy has purchased over 40,000 acres of land along outstanding streams, primarily in the Pacific Northwest. The Big Chico Creek purchase is Western Rivers Conservancy's first in California. Phil Wallin, who founded Western Rivers Conservancy, was born and raised in Chico, graduating from Chico High School in 1964.

Wallin described the Simmons Ranch as, "a spectacular natural area on a free-flowing stream which serves as a refuge for a wide range of rare and endangered life forms." The preserve-to-be spans Big Chico Creek Canyon, from Highway 32 on the eastern ridge to Musty Buck Ridge on the west, with a 1,300-foot elevation range from ridge top to creek bottom. The ranch lies in the transition zone between the oak woodland of the Valley and the foothill pine-fir forest. Big Chico Creek flows through deep pools and rocky riffles, shaded by a thick growth of sycamore, cottonwood and box elder. Steep basaltic bluffs rise on both sides of the stream. The streamside forest of blue oak and valley oak opens up into broad grassy meadows. According to Wallin, this middle reach of Big Chico Creek, upstream from Bidwell Park and downstream from Forest Ranch, is critical spawning and rearing habitat for Sacramento River spring-run chinook salmon and steelhead trout, both listed by the federal government as "threatened" species.

The Big Chico Creek Watershed Alliance, which invited Western Rivers Conservancy to help, is a cooperative alliance of people and institutions with a stake in the health of the Big Chico Creek watershed. The Alliance includes landowners, state and federal resource managers, city and county government, conservation groups, educational institutions, and other interested parties. Suzanne Gibbs, Coordinator of the Alliance, hailed the grant as a major boost to the Simmons Ranch acquisition. "To protect the quality of the watershed, both water quality and habitat quality, we have to conserve the pristine part of Big Chico Canyon between Bidwell Park and Forest Ranch," said Gibbs. "Acquisition of the remainder of the Simmons Ranch is a dream come true for conservationists."

The grant from the Packard Foundation will be combined with $500,000 that has already been allocated to the Simmons Ranch project by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. This funding comes from the Anadromous Fish Restoration Program, which was established by the federal Central Valley Project Improvement Act. The goal of the AFRP is to support restoration of native salmon and steelhead in the Sacramento River basin. Restoration of the spring chinook run on Big Chico Creek is a critical element in that effort. Wallin indicated that approximately $1.5 million remains to be raised to fund the purchase of the Simmons Ranch. He stated that the California Department of Fish & Game rates the property very high as habitat. Based on a recommendation by Fish & Game, the State Wildlife Conservation Board is currently looking at sources of state funding to determine how the project can be funded.

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON

FISH PASSAGE
While salmon runs on Big Chico Creek today are only a fraction of historical numbers, fisheries experts at the University and the California Department of Fish & Game believe the creek has the potential for a strong salmon recovery, now that irrigation pumps at the mouth of the creek have been relocated to the Sacramento River. The California Department of Fish & Game is also working to improve fish passage through boulder-choked Iron Canyon. At present, strong runs of Sacramento River spring-run chinook exist only in Deer Creek, Mill Creek and Butte Creek. Wallin stated that restoring salmon runs on Big Chico Creek to historical numbers will add a "fourth leg" to the effort to revitalize Sacramento River salmon runs.

OTHER THREATENED WILDLIFE
Besides endangered salmon, the proposed refuge is habitat for a multitude of "at-risk" species of aquatic wildlife, such as the foothill yellow-legged frog and the western pond turtle. Big Chico Creek Canyon also serves as critical winter habitat for the East Tehama herd of black-tailed deer, the largest migratory herd in California, whose numbers have declined by half in the last half-century. Mountain lion are frequently observed in the canyon, as well as occasional black bear. "Considering how close the ranch is to urbanized Chico," said Wallin, "it is amazing how natural it remains, and how abundant its wildlife remains."

THE SIMMONS RANCH
Half the original Simmons Ranch was condemned by the City of Chico in 1994 to prevent development. That tract of 1,380 acres was added to Bidwell Park. The present initiative to acquire the remainder of the Simmons Ranch was initiated by the Big Chico Creek Watershed Alliance, in partnership with the Research Foundation of California State University at Chico. The University wants to establish an "outdoor laboratory" for its faculty and students in the Department of Geography and Planning and the Department of Biological Sciences. According to Dr. Don Holtgrieve of the Department of Geography and Planning, "this acquisition will give the University the ability to understand thoroughly the natural processes of this ecosystem and monitor carefully the recovery of endangered species that depend on this habitat." The Research Area will also provide an opportunity for the Watershed Alliance and the University to educate the public about the dynamics of a foothill riparian ecosystem and the life cycle of chinook salmon.

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