Lake County supervisors vote at 9:15 a.m. Tuesday on a $122,400 contract to dig about 5,000 cubic yards of gravel and sediment out of about a mile of Scotts Creek and strip the brush from its channel.
The county calls it the Scotts Creek Habitat Enhancement Project. Its stated aims are to carry floodwater better, cut the risk of local flooding and help the Clear Lake hitch, a fish found only in the Clear Lake watershed that California lists as threatened. Hitch swim up creeks to spawn in spring.
The memo for the vote doesn’t say whether the county’s watershed district has the state permits it told bidders the job needs. A separate state grant that includes Scotts Creek came before the board in September. It lists Jan. 31, 2027, as the target date for its permits.
Water Resources Director Pawan Upadhyay wants the work done fast. “With the rainy season approaching and the potential for significant precipitation associated with El Niño conditions, the available window to complete maintenance activities before increased creek flows is rapidly closing,” he wrote to the board. He expects the job to be done within 30 days, weather and site conditions permitting.
All the brush and about a foot of gravel
The supervisors will vote as the board of the Lake County Watershed Protection District. Staff recommend Dillsaver Construction, which lists a Scotts Valley Road address in Lakeport. The district received three proposals.
The work runs from about a quarter-mile below the Eickhoff Road crossing upstream to a flap gate off Scotts Valley Road, according to the county’s request for proposals. It goes about 400 feet past the gate.
The county’s written answers to bidders spell out the scope. “All vegetation within creek channel must be removed,” they say. Crews would dig out gravel and sediment about a foot deep on average, and the county set “no limitation” on the kind of heavy equipment used. Scotts Creek runs year-round, and the request calls for a temporary water diversion before the digging.
“Excavated material shall be retained by the contractor,” the request says, to be hauled, stockpiled, sorted, reused or dumped where the district approves. Brush goes to a district lot in Nice, or the contractor can arrange with property owners to burn it on site and get any burn permits itself.
When the county advertised the job Oct. 16, it put the budget at about $100,000. The contract is for $122,400, 22% more. The contract’s term is written to start Nov. 3, a week before the vote.
Permits not in the packet
A bidder asked whether the job needs permits from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “Yes, permits are required and the District will obtain them from CDFW,” the county answered Oct. 27.
Upadhyay’s memo says approval “will allow the District to proceed with the remaining project requirements.” It doesn’t list them.
Since June 2025, Fish and Wildlife has posted 19 notices in CEQAnet, the state’s environmental review database, for lake and stream alteration agreements in Lake County. As of Tuesday morning, none covered the Scotts Creek job. The department’s most recent Lake County filing was dated Nov. 4.
A state grant on a longer timeline
On Sept. 22, the board’s consent calendar carried a $613,709 Fish and Wildlife grant called the Lake County 2026 Hitch Barrier Removal Project. It pays to clear sediment and vegetation from about a mile each of four creeks: Victoria, Middle, Scotts and Thompson. The grant’s budget sets aside $100,000 each for three gravel and vegetation contractors.
The grant agreement lists estimated completion dates, which the state’s grant manager can revise. Environmental review documents, if required, are set for Nov. 30. Permits are set for Jan. 31, 2027. Early design plans for Scotts, Victoria and Thompson creeks are set for Dec. 31, and final plans for April 30, 2027.
The agreement bars vegetation removal under the grant until the state’s grant manager issues a notice to proceed. The manager won’t issue one until the district has engineered plans, all required permits and access to the sites.
The Scotts Creek site named in the grant sits about a third of a mile, in a straight line, from the flap gate at the upper end of the contract work. The packet for Tuesday doesn’t say what money pays for the contract. The contract says payment depends on “appropriation of federal, state, and county funds.”
No hitch seen in Scotts Creek this spring
Since 2025, the district has sent volunteers out each spring to count spawning hitch. This year they checked 33 creek sites once a week from March 9 to May 17. They counted 1,152 hitch, against 3,347 in 2025, according to preliminary results staff showed the board Sept. 22. The slides say the hitch spawning run began about a month earlier in 2026. Surveys started March 9.
They saw none in Scotts Creek. They also saw none in Middle or Thompson creeks, two of the other three creeks in the state grant.
The board declared a local emergency over the hitch on Feb. 7, 2023. Renewals of it have been on the board’s agenda as recently as Nov. 3.
The district was negotiating with the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians to monitor the digging for tribal cultural resources, the county told bidders Oct. 27.
The board meets at 9 a.m. at 255 N. Forbes St. in Lakeport and on Zoom. Each speaker gets three minutes.
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