Although the fish has not been seen for more than 60 years, the National Park Service has begun its costly plan to return the endangered species to Malibu.
By Reeve T. Schley/Special to The Malibu Times
After many years of debate and planning, the National Park Service (NPS) has started a project to restore the southern steelhead trout to tiny Solstice Creek, marking the first active measures by the state to save the endangered fish in Los Angeles County.
The project entails modifying two culverts, tearing down or altering two small dams, and replacing the “Arizona crossing”-a concrete apron that crosses at the grade of the stream-with a new bridge. The project is estimated to cost $1.7 million dollars.
By removing obstacles that obstruct the steelhead from swimming up the creek to spawn, the NPS hopes the fish will return to the creek for the first time since the early 1940s. It is a controversial project, one of many the NPS hopes to implement.
Solstice creek is 5 feet to 10 feet wide and at most could provide a mile of habitat for about 300 steelhead, according to NPS officials, who say the conditions of the creek are perfect for spawning.
“Solstice Creek has habitat the steelhead can occupy,” said John Tiszler, plant ecologist for the NPS. “The streambed itself has pools and sandy bottoms. The canopy of trees provides shade and the right environment for the fish.”
After the southern steelhead are born they swim to the ocean where they live from one to four years before returning to fresh-water creeks and rivers to spawn and die.
Biologists are confident they will find their way back to the creek after a 60-year absence. The reason, they say, is that Southern Californian streams often dry up and therefore steelhead are used to spawning in new streams.
However, some say to spend so much money on taking a chance that the fish will return is wasteful and that future efforts to reintroduce the fish elsewhere could impose more severe restrictions.
For example, the California Department of Parks and Recreation already is spearheading a project to examine how steelhead can be introduced further upstream along Malibu Creek. Under discussion is the potential removal of the 100-by 80-foot Rindge Dam, erected in 1929 two miles into Malibu Creek, an endeavor that could cost more than $40 million. This is in addition to the $1.5 million study to see if the endeavor is feasible.
Malibu resident Ronald L. Rindge wrote in a letter to the editor: “These studies have consumed millions of taxpayers dollars represented by reports, field tests and staff time of federal, state and local governments and many environmental groups funded totally by or partially by [the] government (taxpayers’ dollars). These agencies and groups usually rally around the “politically correct” stance rather than delve into a “cost-benefit” analysis … “
Also, in previous years, after the 1993 fires and the destruction of the bridge on PCH over Malibu Creek, rebuilding efforts were stymied because of the endangered tidewater goby. The governor had to sign emergency waivers and decrees to enable the reconstruction of the bridge.
And because steelhead have been sighted in other local streams, hundreds of homes in or near the streams’ watershed areas could be subjected to Environmental Protection Act regulations. Malibu Creek is the single largest watershed within the Santa Monica Mountain range with thousands of residences nearby. Yet, Environmental Protection Act regulations say that once an animal is declared endangered, virtually nothing can be done to disturb the animal or its critical habitat.
“The scary part of this movement to “save the steelhead” is that it is but a microcosm of many such dubious “PC” actions throughout the land, where cost-benefit analysis to determine priorities and relativity to the health and welfare of needs of the human species is usually the last concern, if at all,” Rindge wrote in his letter.
Nevertheless, the work is underway at Solstice. The NPS is replacing the “Arizona crossing” with a new bridge and has started a “feasibility study” to determine the best way to deal with the two dams built by a former landowner on the upper portion of the creek. Caltrans is modifying the culverts.
The dams stand six feet high and twenty feet long. Over the years a large amount of silt has built up behind them. Hydrologists, hired by the NPS, say that releasing the silt would be beneficial to the spawning steelhead because it would return the stream to its natural state and protect the steelhead’s eggs.
The parking lot at the Solstice Creek trailhead has begun to be reconfigured and an “education center” resembling a small pavilion has started to be constructed nearby. The trail remains open, but people are asked to park near the Pacific Coast Highway during construction, which is expected to last the rest of the year.
The construction will cost $1.3 million and be completed in December of 2003.
Next summer, Caltrans will begin altering the two culverts. One culvert runs under Pacific Coast Highway; the other runs under Corral Canyon Road. Delays are not expected on either road during construction.
The culverts are tubular structures with flat concrete bottoms. They create an impassable obstacle for the steelhead by changing the flow of the creek to a shallow plane of water. Caltrans is exploring possible ways to modify the culverts.
“Right now we are still coming up with the alternatives,” said Sandra Lavender, an environmental planner at Caltrans. “Most times you can alter the bottom of the culvert. Take out the bottom, make it a soft bottom or add a baffle-a metal or concrete bump that slows the velocity of the water.”
Lavender originally said the cost of the project, which has no completion date, was estimated at $800 a linear foot. If this is the case, then the culvert under PCH would cost more than $4.3 million to alter and the one under Corral Canyon Road would cost more than $1.5 million.
However, she later reconfigured the cost to be $400,000.