In 1883, two years after he created Hotel Del Monte, railroad baron Charles Crocker facilitated the construction, near Cachagua, of the so-called Chinese Dam – the Carmel River’s first – which aimed to provide 400 acre-feet of water annually to his hotel. … There is a plan in the works, years in the making, though not yet quite near the finish line: the Rancho Cañada Floodplain Restoration Project. The project calls for widening and restoring the riverbed and banks where the river flows through a 40-acre, mile-long stretch of Palo Corona Regional Park through the section that was reclaimed from part of the Rancho Cañada Golf Course in a purchase facilitated by the Trust for Public Land, Trout Unlimited the Santa Lucia Conservancy and the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District.

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• Petaluma Argus Courier: The Petaluma River is in good health, experts say, and cleanups help keep it that way​