Trinity County supervisors heard a detailed briefing Dec. 17 on an Upper Trinity Watershed Restoration and Management Plan designed to guide restoration, road work and ecosystem resilience across roughly 440,000 acres north of Trinity Dam to the Scott Mountain divide.

Anissa Interante, watershed project coordinator with the Trinity County Resource Conservation District, and specialists from the Watershed Research & Training Center described a 300‑plus page assessment that ranks road erosion risk, maps meadow restoration opportunity and evaluates beaver restoration potential. The plan aggregates multiple model outputs — including a TerrainWorks road sedimentation model, a lost‑meadow model, Vibrant Planet fuel‑management overlays and the BRAT beaver‑restoration tool — to produce a prioritized list of projects.

Presenters said the road chapter uses LiDAR‑derived layers and a sediment‑delivery index to highlight segments delivering the most sediment to streams that could be candidates for upgrades or decommissioning. For meadows, the lost‑meadow model flagged substantially more potential meadow area than currently exists, which staff framed as restoration opportunity to improve late‑season flows, habitat and natural fuel breaks.

The beaver chapter assessed roughly 210 stream reaches in the Upper Trinity Basin with models that estimate suitability for beaver dam analogs (BDAs) and natural dam building. Staff identified priority subbasins — including Mumbo Creek, Stuart’s Fork, East Fork Trinity, Picayune and Hobo Creek — for low‑tech process‑based restoration and BDA pilot projects aimed at increasing in‑stream water storage and reducing downstream erosion.

Speakers emphasized the plan is intended as a funding‑ready portfolio: it notes a statewide SIRGO water‑board programmatic permit that would streamline restoration permitting, and it points to the 11,000‑acre Trinity Headwaters land acquisition as a demonstration area for techniques. The project team said the plan will be posted on the RCD website and offered to share data with regional partners such as the Trinity River Watershed Council, Sierra Nevada Conservancy and North Coast Resource Partnership.

Supervisors pressed on practical issues: whether the U.S. Forest Service will allow mechanized equipment in wilderness—staff said that varies by ranger district and recommended local conversations—and how road decommissioning would account for fire‑response access. Presenters said their road‑decommissioning candidates exclude motor‑vehicle‑use‑map roads and that fire‑response concerns should be evaluated by fuels specialists before final decisions.

The board thanked presenters and asked staff to continue coordination with federal and regional partners, further refine priority lists as funding becomes available and post supporting materials for public review.