A meadow in the Tahoe National Forest was drying up with sagebrush. Now it’s a lush wetland.

Sardine Meadow is a key link in conservation efforts for the Sierra Nevada, north of Truckee. Robb Hirsch/Robb Hirsch / Courtesy of Trust for Public Land

Sardine Meadow is now public land

A key piece in the Sierra Nevada, north of Truckee, has flipped from private to public land. On Tuesday, the Trust for Public Land announced the completed transfer of 569 acres in Sardine Meadow to the Tahoe National Forest.

The transfer permanently protects a vital part of the Truckee River watershed and comes after a large conservation effort to heal the meadow following decades of logging, overgrazing and railroad construction dating back to the late 1800s. 

Sardine Meadow is north of Stampede Reservoir, outside Truckee. It’s the largest meadow in the Davies Creek watershed, which feeds into the Truckee River and supplies water downstream to the Reno area.

After years of restoration work, Sardine Meadow has made a remarkable comeback. 

“It’s open and expansive,” Heidi Krolick, Sierra Nevada director for the Trust for Public Land, told SFGATE in an interview Monday. “It’s a really, really special and beautiful place to be.”

A missing piece in the Sierra checkerboard

Sardine Meadow was a missing link in landscape-wide protections in the Tahoe National Forest.

California’s mountains have a fragmented landscape of public and private land thanks to the legacy of the transcontinental railroad, when the government gave railroad companies every other square mile of land. This created a “Sierra checkboard” of alternating land ownership. Timber companies eventually acquired about 75% of the railroad parcels, including Sardine Meadow.

Sardine Meadow was a large private parcel in that checkerboard when the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit that’s protected 4 million acres nationwide, Krolick said. The group purchased it in 2014 for $850,000. The Truckee River Watershed Council and the Tahoe National Forest had identified Sardine Meadow as a priority for watershed restoration after decades of logging, overgrazing and railroad construction had damaged the meadow’s natural streams and plants.

While the news was shared with the public Tuesday, the restoration work culminated Oct. 4, when the Trust for Public Land officially transferred Sardine Meadow to the Tahoe National Forest. 

“This transfer is a milestone for protecting California’s remarkable mountain landscapes and securing some of its most vital watersheds,” said Guillermo Rodriguez, California director for the Trust for Public Land, in a statement.

The return of a wetland

Sardine Meadow is one of many meadows and streams in the Sierra Nevada that were degraded by historic logging and railroad construction, said Beth Christman, senior director of restoration at the Truckee River Watershed Council, in an […]

Full article: www.sfgate.com