The 225,000 member Steelhead Trout Coalition is crying for the removal of Rindge Dam. This is the same group that for the past many years has done nothing to provide a usable habitat for the steelhead below Rindge Dam. Most will not recall that there was an extensive population of steelhead in the pre Tapia years below the dam. The spawning pools just below the dam were pristine. The local kids caught steelhead in the scour pools close to the Arizona Crossing at Cross Creek Road.
Today we have none of that. The Creek is home of big mouth bass, cray fish, carp and other exotic fish that are natural predators on steelhead roe and smolts. Even if a steelhead pair was willing to traverse the polluted lagoon, full of excess nitrates and phosphates, the offspring could not survive. Note, there has been only a handful of probable sightings of steelhead in the Creek during the 90s and none in the new millennium. The problem of ridding an area of exotic fish is not simple; witness the problems in the Sacramento Delta and in Maryland with the snakefish. Before embarking on such an expensive program as dam removal (a $40 million piece of pork) perhaps a few hundred thousand dollars invested in restoration to evaluate the ability to restore the habitat in a seasonably flowing stream would be appropriate.
Advocates of dam removal often cite the virtues of use of the sediment for restoring the beaches. They need to grasp for some cost benefits. They fail to note that there is little current evidence that a significant portion of the sediment behind the dam has granules of the appropriate size to actually restore beaches. Much of the normal sedimentary flow just floats off and disappears in the ocean.
A more cost-effective plan would add flood control to the restoration program. Currently there are extreme flooding events lasting two or three days every few years. The Creek banks overflow, the banks are eroded and, in the 90s, the highway bridge was damaged beyond repair. Restoration of the steelhead habitat below the dam, removal of several feet of sediment behind the dam, installation of flow release controls at the dam site and use of removed sediment to restore the beaches would be a cost effective solution. The steelhead would be back in the Creek, the extreme flooding of the lower creek would be mitigated and local beaches would be replenished. A fish ladder to the upper reaches of the watershed to test survival of steelhead in the warmer environment would be appropriate.
Bill Carson