California — Looking to find the connection between groundwater and surface water in the Scott River basin, the Karuk Tribe currently has a request for proposals for someone to develop a working model to achieve that end.

“The Scott River is an important tributary of the Klamath River and historically provided critical spawning and rearing habitat for salmonids,” the request reads, “The intent of this model is to enable the exploration of creative water management and other strategies to improve flow and water quality conditions for fisheries resources.”

To do so, the request states, the tribe is asking for a water model that demonstrates the link between groundwater and surface water in the Scott River basin, including “how changes in groundwater pumping, surface diversions, and various conservation measures would affect river flows under various hydrological and management conditions.”

According to the request, three tasks are expected in the development of the model, including the development of a recommendation and cost estimate for the modeling approach to be used, which is expected to take into account the physical characteristics of the Scott sub-basin, the connectivity between ground and surface waters, available data, the abililty to obtain additional data and other considerations.

The next two tasks include the development of a study plan and then the execution of that plan to create and populate a model using collaboration “with Karuk and other appropriate professional staff to run various modeling scenarios and provide output in formats appropriate for the intended use of the model ... and if reasonable based on the technical skills required for model operation, train our staff to operate model.”

According to the request, the period for acceptance of proposals ends Jan. 31, and preference will be given to tribal contractors.

Groundwater in the Scott Valley has been in the news often recently, with the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors creating a groundwater advisory committee for the basin, a lawsuit seeking a declaration that the county and State Water Board have the authority to manage interconnected groundwater in the basin and the presentation of a groundwater study already underway.

That study, which relied on work from UC Davis graduate student Ryan Hines and Dr. Thomas Harter, is being used to model groundwater movement throughout the Scott basin, and is intended to be used to understand that basin’s ground and surface water interaction.

– David Smith can be reached at dsmith@siskiyoudaily.com