Protect and Enjoy: Bringing Meadows Back For Water, Wildlife & People

Perazzo Meadow, photo by Elizabeth Carmel

With more than 40,000 acres protected, Land Trust lands cover a wide range of landscapes, ecosystems and habitats – but for many, the mountain meadow stands out as a favorite. There’s something about a green meadow, stream meandering through with wildflowers and birds dotting the landscape – and dark green forests on either edge climbing the mountains above.

Beneath that beauty, however, there are often opportunities for improvement – righting past wrongs of the last 100 years. That’s where our partnership with the Truckee River Watershed Council comes in.

“Past land uses like grazing, channelizing stream courses, logging, road and railroad building we see a lot of locally,” said Beth Christman, Director of Restoration Programs for the Watershed Council.

Two Watershed Council projects on Land Trust properties deal with a number of these factors: Perazzo Meadows and Lacey Meadow.

Christman said a functional meadow typically looks like this: a complex, multi-threaded stream course that changes and moves year over year – overtopping its banks in flooding events with water spreading out across the meadow. Vegetation includes sedges, meadow grasses, wildflowers, willow thickets and other plants that need a high water table during the growing season.

In contrast, a set, single stream course with steep, cut banks and a dry meadow above turning to sage and even forest all set off alarm bells for the Watershed Council.

Christman and the Watershed Council start off by investigating historical conditions with aerial photographs, maps, cultural resources experts and other clues.

“In Perazzo the stream was definitely confined to a single channel where the dairy wanted the meadow dried out for grazing, and we could see an old roadbed,” Christman said.

But they don’t just look backwards in coming up with a goal for the meadow – they also look forward at other considerations like climate change.

“Climate change makes hydrologic restoration more important – a functional meadow is way better for dealing with increasing rain and decreasing snowpack, with flooding events, and they store water longer to maintain stream flow later in the season. It’s like refilling a sponge every year,” Christman said.

For Perazzo, Christman said they took a more aggressive tack because of the degradation, digging what are called “plug and pond” in the upper portions of the meadow and filling in portions of the cut channel in the lower meadow – both with the goal of getting the stream to jump its confined banks and find historic courses.

“I feel like the magic number for a meadow coming back is year three after we do the work, and this is year two,” Christman said “But we’ve been surprised at how quick the response has been, especially given the dry year.”

Watershed Council staff noted new springs in the meadow this summer, likely the product of a raised water table thanks to the re-wetted meadow.

“Our botanist was just out there, she said she couldn’t believe how much it’s changed since 2019,” Christman said. “Anecdotally we’ve been seeing increased wildlife use, we’ve seen river otters out there, seen so many more birds than before – and the fish, I’ve never seen so many fish jumping.”

Elsewhere above Webber Lake, the Watershed Council is also working on Lacey Meadow. Split into an upper and lower meadow, Christman said the stream feeding into Webber Lake is currently in an old roadbed, not following historic stream channels and drying the meadow out.

“Lacey Meadow is a different situation – we don’t need to do big fills like Perazzo – the stream kind of wants to go back,” Christman said. “We’re mimicking natural processes but strategically, trying to kick the water back into its channels. I think the upper meadow is going to be amazing in a couple years, you’re not even going to recognize it.”

Looking forward, Christman said watershed and meadow restoration will continue to evolve, likely with an emphasis on functioning through long drought periods, and how they can help with the challenges facing the Sierra.

“We participated in this study looking at meadows across the Sierra and their carbon storage – and we found that functional meadows uptake carbon at temperate forest and peat bog wetland levels,” Christman said.

Want to learn more about an aspect of natural science on Land Trust lands? Or are you an expert who’d love to lend some insight? Please send an email to greyson@tdlantrust.org with your idea.