Reclamation signs San Joaquin River Restoration Program’s Mendota Pool Bypass decision

Effective Oct. 31, the Bureau of Reclamation has signed a Record of Decision (ROD) for the San Joaquin River Restoration Program’s (SJRRP) Mendota Poll Bypass and Reach 2B Improvements Project located within Madera and Fresno counties.  When completed the Mendota Pool Bypass will allow fish to bypass the Mendota Dam, which is the largest fish passage impediment in the SJRRP area.

“The time and effort put in by the local affected community to reach a widely supported alternative on this project has been tremendous, and I thank them for helping make this a better project,” said David Murillo, director of Reclamation’s Mid-Pacific Region. “Signing the Record of Decision is a huge milestone towards implementing the 2006 settlement to restore the San Joaquin River, and we’re looking forward to starting construction next year.”

In addition to providing fish passage around Mendota Dam, the plan for separating reintroduced spring-run Chinook salmon from the critical water supply infrastructure in Mendota Pool. This represents the first of the Phase 1 projects identified in the Stipulation of Settlement of Natural Resources Defense Council vs. Rodgers to reach the construction phase.  Construction of the approximately $420 million project is expected to begin in late 2017 and take about 10 years to complete.

The project’s footprint runs from approximately three-tenths-of-a-mile above the Chowchilla Bypass Bifurcation Structure to one mile below the Mendota Dam near the town of Mendota. Planned activities include:

• Building setback levees capable of conveying flows up to 4,500 cubic feet per second (cfs) and removing portions of the existing levees to allow flow onto the floodplain.
• Restoring floodplain habitat to provide benefit to salmonids and other native fishes.
• Constructing a channel and structures capable of conveying up to 4,500 cfs of restoration flows around the Mendota Pool.
• Constructing structures capable of conveying up to 2,500 cfs from Reach 2B to Mendota Pool.
• Providing upstream and downstream fish passage for adult salmonids and other native fishes and downstream fish passage for juvenile salmonids between Reach 2A and Reach 3.

The San Joaquin River Restoration Program (SJRRP) is a comprehensive long-term effort to restore flows to the San Joaquin River from Friant Dam to the confluence of Merced River and restore a self-sustaining Chinook salmon fishery in the river while reducing or avoiding adverse water supply impacts from restoration flows.

The Record of Decision and the Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (EIS/EIR) were developed pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act and are available at http://www.usbr.gov/mp/nepa/nepa_projdetails.cfm?Project_ID=4032. If you want to request a hardcopy of the report, call 916-978-4624 (TTY 800-877-8339) or email [email protected].