Dams installed on creek in Pescadero

By Nick Casey
Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Officials from several agencies work to install an inflatable dam in a tributary of Pescadero Creek. They hope the device will improve water quality in the area.

On the mudflats outside Pescadero, just before the town's namesake creek reaches the sea, an unlikely group of scuba divers waded into the muck last week.

Managing large inflatable bags, the team was beginning an experimental process that will soon yield new water quality data on the ecosystem - and possibly avert one of the area's largest natural disasters.

"They may just prove a hypothesis we've been arguing for years," said Tim Frahm who has fished the creek for years.

Frahm believes that strategically placing "bladder dams" along a stagnant arm of the estuary may prevent the death of thousands of fish this year. The annual fishkill is all too familiar in these parts: For the last decade, the mudflats have literally glittered with the bodies of steelhead trout that die shortly after entering the mouth of the creek.

And the trout aren't the only victims. Steve Simms, another local fisherman, said he's found dozens of other dead creatures, including crabs, flounders, smelt and various bottom-feeders.

The cause of all that death is officially a mystery.

But Simms and Frahm believe they have the answer. The annual fish kills began in the 1990s after California State Parks breached a man-made levy that likely held back oxygen-poor waters from the creek.

The two residents say this amounts to more than pure coincidence. With the barrier gone, they believe anoxic water now seeps freely into Pescadero Creek, choking the fish the moment they begin their journey upstream.

Patrick Rutten, field supervisor for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Restoration Center, was reluctant to say that this year's dam installation would prevent fish from being killed. The main goal of the project - a collaboration between NOAA, the California Department of Fish and Game and State Parks - is to establish a portfolio of reliable data on the estuary, he said.

"There are so many old levies and tide gates in the area that the natural circulation of water flow has been disrupted," he said. Restoring circulation could have benefits beyond protecting the threatened fish, he said, including possibly preventing the flooding of Pescadero Road.

"The primary goal of this project is water quality," he said.

The 10 orange bladder dams - at $12,000 a piece - now lie at the levy's opening, and officials will soon begin taking new data on their effect on Pescadero Creek.

Locals say the project has been long overdue.

Simms said that officials with State Parks, the current owner of the land, had previously been skeptical that the stagnant water was causing the fish to die.

Before considering action, officials decided to perform a series of hydrology tests to confirm the nature of the fish kill. But tests have dragged on for several years, and each fall the fish continued to die by the thousands.

"If a private individual had been the cause of this, he'd surely have been prosecuted," Simms said.

However, State Parks argues that the testing is necessary to ensure the health of the entire ecosystem.

"We're trying to look at the health of the marsh as a whole. We're not just managing the fish," said David Vincent, superintendent of State Park's Santa Cruz district. "To do this we need a lot of information - several years of data to reach a conclusion. It's not going to be any one aspect out there that will be our magic bullet."

Pescadero residents will have to wait and see whether the dams have an impact on fish populations.

Until then, local fishermen are crossing their fingers, hoping that this year fish will swim safely in the creek.

http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2006/11/23/news/local_news/story03.txt