One of the long term goals of the SVRCD has been to remove all agricultural barriers for fish passage. This has naturally allowed salmon and steelhead to upstream spawning habitat and areas for cool oversummering for juveniles.

Starting in the late 1990s, all but one of the major diversion dam barriers have been removed in the insuing years.  They include the Fiock Dam, the Araujo Dam, the Shasta River Water Association Dam, the Grenada Irrigation Dam, and several others.