Suisun Marsh Essential Fish Screen
Rehabilitation Project
Water for Wetlands, Protecting Fish
The goal of the Essential Fish Screens (EFS) Project is to use a phased approach to rehabilitate the infrastructure protecting fish in Suisun Marsh of Solano County that have exceeded their useful life (>20 years). The EFS prevent the entrainment of fish including several endangered species in diversion structures that supply the water to 5,369 acres of seasonally managed wetlands along Montezuma Slough (Figure 1).
Phase 1 of the project was initiated in 2020 with a San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority (SFBRA) planning grant to assess the feasibility of the project by upgrading one EFS, estimating the cost to rehabilitate the other EFS, restoring EFS maintenance capacity for the EFS which increased water availability for 66 wetland acres, and upgrading solar power at 6 remote sites. Phase 1 was successfully completed in 2022 (Chappell et al. 2022).
SFBRA awarded the project an implementation grant in 2023-2024 to conduct Phase 2 and rehabilitate the 2 highest priority EFS (#425 and #506) in the poorest condition. These sites were successfully rehabilitated at the end of 2024. With the successful rehabilitation of these 2 EFS, 382 acres of managed wetlands in the Suisun Marsh are now protected and enhanced.
SRCD is actively pursuing funding to address the degraded functionality of the remaining 11 EFS sites along Montezuma Slough, the major tidal slough of Solano County, that protect and enhance 4,869 acres of seasonally managed wetlands in Suisun Marsh.
