City of Rialto

Amount Appropriated?

$2.0M

FFID tracks stages 1–2 — stages 3–5 vary by agency, assistance type, and earmark structure.

Project Description

The Lake Rialto Project provides no-cost, publicly accessible open space, pedestrian perimeter trails, and opportunities for recreation and educational programming to all community members, including nearby Disadvantaged and Severely Disadvantaged Communities. The Project will improve fish and bird habitat through flexible water management and create approximately 41 acre-feet of seasonal storage for site and downstream habitat enhancement. Currently, the federally threatened Santa Ana sucker and the Arroyo\nchub, two native fish species, are negatively impacted by warm effluent water summer water temperatures. Lake Rialto will address this issue by holding effluent for several days, reducing the water temperature for native fish and other aquatic species in Rialto Channel and the downstream Santa Ana River. This enables management actions that currently cannot occur, including the complete dewatering of Rialto Channel to control non-native aquatic predators such as largemouth bass. The Project will also provide simulated high flow pulse into the Rialto Channel, whereby high flow pulses wash away fine sediment, cleaning rock surfaces, enhancing the native fishes spawning season. Finally, the Project has the potential to provide new water quality benefits such as nitrogen and phosphorus bioremediation, removal of microplastics, and wetland, riparian, and open water habitat creation to benefit native wildlife (e.g., least Bell\u2019s vireo, tricolored blackbird, western pond turtle, arroyo chub, South Coast garter snake, western toad and tree frogs, waterfowl, and other migratory birds). The Project will benefit the regional watershed plan, the Upper Santa\nAna River Habitat Conservation Plan and promote the recovery of multiple species.