Environmental Enhancements

The Bald­win Creek Fish Bar­ri­er is part of Phase 1A of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Bat­tle Creek Salmon and Steel­head Restora­tion Project. The pri­ma­ry objec­tive of the project is to open up 42 miles of Bat­tle Creek river­ine habi­tat above the Cole­man Nation­al Fish Hatch­ery, and 6 miles of trib­u­tary habi­tat, to spring-run and win­ter-run Chi­nook salmon and steel­head trout.

The project includ­ed the con­struc­tion of a fish bar­ri­er and weir that allows a min­i­mum flow of 5 cubic-feet-per-sec­ond (cfs) over the new flash­board weir struc­ture installed at the exist­ing diver­sion dam in Bald­win Creek. The project is down­stream of the Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Fish and Wildlife’s Dar­rah Springs State Trout Hatch­ery, locat­ed upstream of Asbury Diver­sion Dam, about 27 miles north­east of Red Bluff, Cal­i­for­nia. The 5 cfs min­i­mum flow pro­vides the nec­es­sary releas­es for suit­able salmon and steel­head habi­tat in the creek, while the bar­ri­er weir blocks the pas­sage of anadro­mous fish to pre­vent the pos­si­ble spread of dis­ease to the hatchery.