In 2002, the Watershed Center began working with The Nature Conservancy California, the California Department of Water Resources and the North Delta Improvements group on an effort to model a range of restoration scenarios for the McCormack-Williamson Tract.

This involved expanding and modifying existing hydraulic models, examining the effects of flood flows and other upstream events, evaluating the water quality effects of various scenarios and investigating the sediment-trapping efficiency of levee breaches and other restoration alternatives such as setback levees.

At the request of the Department of Water Resources, the Center also convened a panel of experts to provide advice on North Delta integrated flood control and ecosystem restoration planning.

The experts were asked to address such concerns as: mercury, exotics, dendritic channel creation and function, sediment dynamics, ecological processes, geomorphology, terrestrial and aquatic species, water quality and hydraulics.