Verdantas is leading this project, located in the Pajaro River Estuary where the Pajaro River, Watsonville Slough, and Monterey Bay meet, on behalf of the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County.  Working in conjunction with Environmental Science Associates (ESA), Verdantas is responsible for investigating alternatives and developing a restoration plan for the estuary that improves resiliency for communities, agriculture, and the natural environment in the face of a changing climate.

The Pajaro Valley and its bar-built estuary are subject to complex flooding dynamics that threaten farmland, infrastructure, and freshwater resources. These impacts arise from a combination of riverine flooding, king tides, storm surge, large wave events, sea level rise, and the open or closed condition of the lagoon sandbar. Coastal wetlands in the region have been reduced to a fraction of their historical extent, diminishing their capacity to provide flood protection, wildlife habitat, and water quality improvement. The farmland in the Pajaro Valley is among the most productive in the world, yielding healthy fruits and vegetables and supporting significant economic activity. Similar challenges are faced by coastal communities and agriculture throughout California and globally.

This restoration planning effort and preliminary designs aim to create robust wetland habitats for estuarine species, improve water quality, and protect prime farmland from the increasing risks posed by wave events and sea level rise. A central goal is to minimize impacts to freshwater supplies from seawater intrusion into surface and groundwater resources. Achieving these outcomes requires sustained, broad-based support from all sectors of the community. The Land Trust has worked extensively with landowners and agricultural operators to identify underperforming farmland suitable for restoration and floodwater accommodation, and acquired properties through fee purchase and rolling restoration easements. This project, and future projects like it, are achievable only through sustained broad support from all sectors of the community. The restoration plan is intended to serve as a model for how coastal agricultural communities can proactively adapt to climate change, balancing ecological restoration with agricultural productivity and community resilience.

The restoration plan will be completed in March of 2027 and includes two interrelated products:

• Develop a comprehensive Pajaro Estuary Resilience and Restoration Plan (Resilience Plan) for the estuary of the Pajaro River and Watsonville Sloughs. The Plan is intended to be a feasibility study for wetland restoration on low productivity farm fields to build resilience to sea level rise and storm surge, and so protect prime farmland, infrastructure and freshwater resources.
• Develop a Preliminary Restoration Design, Project Description, and Implementation Plan (Phase 1 Design), consistent with the Resilience Plan, that is sufficiently detailed to support environmental compliance of proposed project activities on about 120 acres of land along about 3.2 miles of shoreline. The Land Trust of Santa Cruz County anticipates having site control and perpetual stewardship responsibility.