Napa Plant Site, Napa River City of American Canyon
The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) is proposing a habitat restoration project at the Napa Plant Site, a former salt production facility in the floodplain of the Napa River near the City of American Canyon, California. The 1,460-acre project site was acquired by DFG from Cargill Salt Co. (Cargill) in March 2003, as part of the larger State of California, federal, and privately sponsored purchase of 16,500 acres of salt ponds in the San Francisco Bay estuary. The Napa Plant Site Restoration (NPSR) project (proposed project) would restore a mosaic of wetland and associated habitats to benefit estuarine biota including waterfowl, shorebirds, fishes, and small mammals. It would re-establish wildlife corridors and connectivity of habitats at the landscape scale. The proposed project includes establishment of public access to the site to provide a variety of recreational and educational opportunities for the people of the region.
The purposes of the proposed project are to:
• Provide habitat for a broad range of migratory shorebirds and waterfowl, marsh-dependent
birds, mammals, fish and other aquatic organisms, and threatened and endangered species
• Foster connectivity among habitats on the site and with adjacent sites to enable wildlife
movement,
• Create a design that can adjust to changes in the Napa River estuarine environment with
minimal ongoing intervention,
• Provide wildlife-oriented public access and recreation, and
• Maintain existing levels of flood control.
Regional ecological planning documents were used as a basis to develop project-specific
planning goals and objectives for the NPSR site. The three primary sources were the Baywide
habitat restoration goals presented in the Baylands Ecosystem Goals Report (1999), the goals and objectives for the Napa-Sonoma Marsh Restoration Project (NSMRP) on the former salt ponds located across the Napa River from the proposed project site (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 2004), and the goals
and objectives for the South Bay Salt Ponds Project (PWA et al. 2004). These sources are relevant because all three projects are located in the San Francisco Bay estuary (the NSMRP is in
the same reach of the Napa River as the proposed project) resulting in a shared ecological
context; i.e., many of the biotic communities and abiotic conditions are similar at the three sites.
Wetlands, Fish, Birds, Endangered Species, Habitat Restoration, Public Access
Ecosystem Restoration,
Environmental and habitat protection and improvement,
Flood management,
Recreation and public access,
Water quality protection and improvement,
Wetlands enhancement and creation
