The coalition says area beaches and steelhead trout population are at stake. Critics say dam removal would be too costly.
By Christy Courter/Special to The Malibu Times
The ongoing debate over the removal of Rindge Dam continues this month with the organization California Trout and the 225,000-member Southern California Steelhead Coalition release of a report calling for the removal of the dam.
“Rindge Dam serves no beneficial purpose. It does not help with flood control, water supply, or hydropower generation because it is completely filled with sediment,” said Jim Edmondson, California Trout’s conservation director.
The major cause of issue for the coalition is the endangered population of steelhead trout. According to the coalition, the 102-foot tall dam blocks access to a critical spawning habitat for the endangered Southern California steelhead.
Critics of removal of the dam say it is a historic structure and that temperatures are too high in the waters above the dam for the trout to survive. Also criticized is the estimated $40 million price tag to remove the dam.
The coalition claims the steelhead have a unique “warm water” adaptability that could be critical to preserving all steelhead along the Pacific Coast that are now threatened by global warming.
This claim conflicts with local resident Ronald L. Rindge’s view, a descendent of the Rindge family that built the dam, who strongly opposes its removal. Rindge sent letters to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stating the trout could not exist in the upper watershed above the dam because temperatures are too high during much of the year, and because of poor water quality caused by urbanization in the upper watershed and effluent being discharged from the Tapia sewer treatment plant.
Rindge insists it would be a “folly to continue to spend money on this project until the water in Malibu Creek is once again pristine and capable of sustaining steelhead below the dam,” which is where, he said, the “trout flourished for 40 years after the dam was built in 1924.”
The 102-foot high and 140-foot wide dam was originally erected in 1926 to provide agricultural water supply. After completion, the dam’s reservoir rapidly filled with sediment. By 1955, the dam was completely filled. In 1967 the California Department of Water Resources decommissioned the dam.
In its report, California Trout and the coalition noted the Santa Monica Bay area beaches and economies would also benefit from removal of the dam. The report indicated that the area’s beaches have eroded away because sediment, blocked by Rindge Dam, has not been deposited along the shoreline.
The Department of Boating and Waterways has estimated the state of California will need to invest $120 million in one-time beach nourishment costs and $27 million in annual maintenance expenditures to bring back the beaches. Removal of the dam, with costs estimated as high as $40 million, would allow sediments to deposit onto the beaches, reducing the state’s costs.
California Trout and the coalition released their report as a set of formal comments to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Malibu Creek restoration feasibility study. The Corps’ $2.1 million study is being conducted to try and determine if the Rindge Dam in Malibu Creek should be torn down in order to save a run of what is believed to be approximately 50 steelhead trout. The study also examined options for restoring the Malibu Creek ecosystem, including alternatives for removal of the dam.
If the dam were to be removed, certain concerns are being examined such as impacts to the estuary, depletion of water supply, water quality, bank erosion, recreation and cultural resources (the dam as a National Historic Site).
The Corps is also looking at ways to reintroduce steelhead such as installing a fish ladder, or pool and riffle structures. The study’s completion and an announcement of the Corps’ preferred restoration alternative is expected in 2004.