Originally Posted by
John Sv
I work in conservation and restoration in the Truckee region and we do a lot of work in Martis Valley. There is a fair bit of restoration going on in the Martis tribs. East Martis creek is in decent shape, lack of development wise than the other tribs. The main stem has some restoration underway that will get rid (hopefully) of the physical and thermal barriers to fish passage. The valley is Truckee’s primary aquifer. The dam is a flood control dam and the usage is looking at both safety and need. I believe the fault that runs beneath it is quite active and is called the Polaris fault. The land trust I work for owns the land south of the dam.
The property has these areas that look like old fire roads that sit in cuts, which are Polaris fault lines-kinda cool. Another interesting thing to me-all of these mountain valleys now covered with reservoirs and sage-the historic seed stock is grass. That is, prior to modifications by people they were not sagebrush seas, they were grasslands/meadows all the way up into the woods. Operation of the plumbed systems and watercourse modifications to convey the water to the reservoirs lowers the water table and dries out the meadow. Also makes the spawning tribs less accessible to the fish. Sorry for rambling.
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