Restoring the Headwaters: A Year of Progress at Haskell Peak Meadows

In 2025, SYRCL, in partnership with the Tahoe National Forest, Point Blue, the Wildlife Conservation Board, and the Department of Water Resources, completed a third year of project implementation on the Haskell Peak Meadows Project which includes 229 acres of meadow, fen, and meadow edge habitat within five high priority meadows in the North Yuba watershed: Haskell Headwaters Fen, Chapman Saddle Meadow, West Church Meadow, Freeman Meadow, and Bear Trap Meadow. 

The Haskell Peak Meadows Project uses low-tech process-based restoration, by integrating tools such as beaver dam analogs (BDAs) and post assisted log structures (PALS), to assist the system in aggradation and floodplain reconnection. Aggradation is the process of sediment accrual that naturally occurs in healthy meadows via slow flowing waters that deposit sediment. Beaver dam analogs are manmade structures that mimic beaver dams. These low-impact tools have proven to be effective at promoting floodplain connectivity and complexity, increasing habitat heterogeneity, and increasing ecological resilience (Pollock et al. 2017). 

By the close of the 2025 field season, more than 500 beaver dam analogs and post-assisted log structures had been installed across the five Haskell Peak project meadows. 

Teamwork Makes the Stream Work 

Restoration takes a village. In the Haskell Peak Meadows Project, relationships are strengthened through hands on meadow restoration actions. In 2025, SYRCL built on relationships with the Tahoe National Forest, Swiftwater Designs, the California Heritage Indigenous Research Project, and community volunteers by sharing opportunities to learn techniques that are used to restore our headwaters. 

In June, SYRCL and Swift Water Designs co-hosted a “Build Like a Beaver” training with staff from the Tahoe National Forest. These trainings focus on how to read the landscape for BDA site selection and teach the physical process of building BDA structures. Sessions such as this help build technical capacity for this work across agencies and organizations working in the Sierra.  

In July, staff from the California Heritage Indigenous Research Project (CHIRP) Land Stewardship Crew, joined us in the field for a similar “Build Like a Beaver” training. This effort supports goals to build internal capacity for meadow restoration among Indigenous practitioners and deepen the collaborative relationship between SYRCL and CHIRP that will continue into 2026. This partnership reflects SYRCL’s commitment to Indigenous workforce development as an integral part of restoration work in the Sierra. 

Later in the field season, as ephemeral channels dried, and willows began to senesce, Rose Ledford rallied 10 volunteers to join her in Freeman Meadow. Volunteers worked to install much smaller structures called willow fascines. Willow fascines are living bundles of willow cuttings anchored to the ground that stabilize soil, slow water, encourage revegetation, and grow into living shrubs.  Participants installed more than 30 willow fascines, learned about meadow ecology, and enjoyed a sunny fall day together in the meadow.  

SYRCL also highlighted the importance of meadow restoration work by leading site tours for the Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB), one of the project’s funding partners, San Francisco State University, and the North Yuba Forest Partnership.  

To educate the public who recreate on our Public Lands, SYRCL and the Tahoe National Forest installed interpretive signage at three of the project meadows. These signs will help visitors understand the ecosystem services these landscapes provide. 

Monitoring and Education: The Science and Learning Behind the Work 

In 2025, SYRCL conducted post-project monitoring at all five project meadows — a rigorous, multi-disciplinary effort that generated the data needed to evaluate whether project actions are achieving their ecological goals. 

Hydrologic monitoring, including tracking streamflow, water quality, and groundwater occurred across all five project meadows. This monitoring work continued from May through October, providing a sustained, season-long dataset that allows the project team to evaluate whether restoration actions are producing measurable changes in how water moves through, and is retained by, these landscapes.  

Vegetation & carbon monitoring was conducted and supported by Earthwatch Girls in Science students during the peak vegetative growth season. Vegetation data captures post-restoration plant community composition throughout the meadows. SYRCL staff also tracked understory vegetation and conifer re-establishment in meadow-edge habitat, an important indicator of whether the boundaries between forest and meadow are shifting in response to tree removal and hydrologic restoration actions. Partners from the University of Nevada—Reno, conducted post-restoration carbon monitoring at two of the project meadows, contributing to a growing body of evidence on the role healthy meadows play in balancing our carbon budget. 

This year, SYRCL hosted its annual Girls in Science Earthwatch Expedition in the North Yuba and at the five Haskell Peak project meadows. This program introduces students to careers in science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM). Students spent a week working alongside SYRCL staff and collecting post restoration monitoring data from eighty-five unique vegetation plots. Students also participated in SYRCL’s groundwater monitoring efforts and shadowed staff from the University of Nevada—Reno, to conduct carbon monitoring. This effort connects the next generation of scientists to work happening across the region and exposes them to career paths they may not have known about. 

Looking Ahead: The work at the Haskell Peak Meadows enters its final phase in 2026.  

The fourth year of implementation will commence in summer 2026, to further optimize channel-floodplain connectivity across the five meadows. The CHIRP Land Stewardship Crew will return alongside SYRCL and Swift Water Designs to complete the final year of work. 

A public tour of Freeman Meadow is being planned, offering community members, partner organizations, and agency staff the opportunity to see low-tech process-based restoration tools in action and learn about the benefits of meadow restoration.

The Yuba River begins in places like this: in high-elevation meadows that hold snowmelt, filter water, and release it slowly through the dry months. Restoring these headwaters is an investment in the entire watershed and in the communities, fish, and wildlife that depend on it downstream. Together, we can ensure that investment endures. 

SYRCL would like to thank the Sierra Meadows Partnership (SMP) Block Grant, administered by Point Blue Conservation Science and the Wildlife Conservation Board, the Water Quality Supply and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014 administered by the California Department of Water Resources, and Trout Unlimited for funding this critical work.