THE DECLINE OF Crystal Lake : The Abuse by Humans, Lack of Water Have Taken Their Toll

Benjamin Eaton, a Pasadena judge, visited Crystal Lake in 1887 and reported: “The water is clear as a crystal, and our party found it good to drink.”

The judge didn’t mention the fishing, which is good these days, although the tiny lake has fallen on hard times. When Jim Edmondson walked down the unswept stone steps through the pines and into the clear last week, his first reaction was shock at the algae and trash around the shoreline and how low the water level was.

Then he heard a splash and noticed several rings of ripples on the surface.

“There are (fish) rises all over the place out there,” he said.

Two anglers were having some success with spinning lures, no doubt benefiting from recent trout plants by the California Department of Fish and Game, but it was difficult to ignore the lake’s decline.

Crystal Lake is at 5,600 feet, 25 miles north of Azusa, at the end of California 39 in the Angeles National Forest. It’s the only natural lake in the San Gabriel Mountains and the only alpine lake in Los Angeles County.

Although only 50 miles from downtown Los Angeles, with a campground and small resort, it is under used. California’s four-year drought, the algae, the trash, the graffiti on the rocks and the generally unkempt appearance make it a less appealing destination than it was when Angelenos traveled up the mountain by horse and buggy and later Model-T. The judge would be ill-advised to drink the water now.

A small hope for Crystal Lake is Proposition B on the L.A. County ballot Nov. 6. Of the $816.89 million proposed in the long-winded Los Angeles County Safe Neighborhood Parks, Tree-planting, Gang Prevention, Senior Recreation, Beaches and Wildlife Act is a $5-million bone for the County Fish and Game Commission to restore habitat for wild trout and native steelhead in coastal and mountain streams. There also is a $10-million allocation to restore lands and develop recreational resources along the Santa Clara, San Gabriel and Los Angeles rivers or their tributaries.

But the commission is not counting on Prop. B. For one thing, it’s the largest bond issue in county history and requires approval by two-thirds of the voters.

And even commission Chairman Brad Crowe is against it.

“Personally, I’m not in favor of taxation to buy $800 million worth of all this stuff,” Crowe said. “I think it’s too expensive.

“If we got 10 million bucks, I honestly don’t know what we’d do with it . . . unless we could figure out a meaningful project for L.A. County.”

Enter Edmondson. He is regional manager for California Trout, the fishermen’s lobby that has been on the front lines of many water fights for fish, including at Mono Lake and the East Walker River.

Edmondson has a year-old laundry list of projects for 10 Southern California fisheries, including Crystal Lake, that comes to $2,649,250. That Crystal Lake is not a stream and has no wild trout--they’re all planted--does not exclude it from the list, in Edmondson’s mind. Some of its water probably seeps into the San Gabriel River system, and it obviously needs help. Who would object on a technicality?

Well . . . maybe the L.A. County Fish and Game Commission.

Every county in the state has a five-member fish and game commission. Each county supervisor appoints one member for his district. Clearly, the commissioners aren’t obligated to follow their sponsors’ voting lines. Crowe was appointed by Deane Dana, who was among the 4-1 majority of the supervisors approving Prop. B.

And Crystal Lake is in the district of Pete Schabarum, the lone dissenter on Prop. B.

Another problem is that the County Fish and Game Commission normally functions on a budget of $90,000 a year, all of which comes from fines for fishing and hunting violations split with the state Department of Fish and Game, and half of which it spends to plant catfish in county park ponds. It also has sponsored artificial reef projects and deer studies and has helped to reintroduce bald eagles to Santa Catalina Island, but it isn’t accustomed to dealing in six figures, let alone seven or eight.

“It’ll make the meetings a lot longer,” said another commissioner, Brad Nuremberg, who also does not favor the measure. “We’ll get groups we never heard of before.”

Nuremberg has reservations about following CalTrout’s suggestions.

“They would like the lake to be a prime fly-fishing thing,” Nuremberg said.

Edmondson denied that. “We have never supported fly-fishing-only in California,” he said. “(That would be) discriminatory against the (non-fly-fishing) public.”

CalTrout’s proposal also calls for work on Piru Creek, San Antonio Creek, the East and West Forks of the San Gabriel River, Cold Creek, coastal streams of the Santa Monica Mountains, Malibu Lagoon and two separate projects on Malibu Creek.

There is little dispute about how to fix Crystal Lake, should funds become available. CalTrout thinks it would cost $232,500, including $20,000 for plumbing repairs and $35,000 to create a natural spawning stream.

Crystal Lake has no feeder streams and no outlet. It was created by snow and rain runoffs, augmented by springs, and in dry years water piped in from nearby springs sustained the level. But only one pipe is working now, and CalTrout’s plan is to repair the others and build a spawning stream out of the spring flow so the lake could have wild trout.

As it is, the warm, stagnant water promotes the growth of algae and reduces the oxygen content for the fish. The one pipe feeding the lake is woefully inadequate.

“It helps the water temperature a little bit, (but) it’s like trying to fill a sieve,” said Don Stikkers, the Mt. Baldy District Ranger for the U.S. Forest Service. “It’s as low as it’s been in quite a few years because of the drought. As the water table goes down, so does the lake. There is underwater drainage out of the lake.”

In other words, the lake leaks. Willis Evans was a Southern California fisheries biologist for the DFG and the Forest Service in Crystal Lake’s prime. He said part of the problem is that it sits on a fault that probably served to form its basin in some ancient cataclysm.

“One of the things that may be necessary is to seal the bottom,” Evans said.

This year an aerator, or “bubbler,” was placed in the lake to increase the oxygen content, but it has run sporadically because of what Stikkers called “start-up problems.”

Armand and David Denis and the latter’s wife, Annette, run the nearby store and resort. They bought the improvements eight years ago and lease the property from the Forest Service, which they hold in low esteem.

“I blame the Forest Service for not taking care of (the lake),” Armand Denis said. “But the Forest Service has been cut back (financially) to where they can’t do anything. I’ve heard a lot of talk for a long time and seen very little action.”

He has two main complaints: First, a condition of the lease was to burn down the snack shack and boat rental shed on the edge of where the lake used to be. Later, the Denises had to close the gasoline pumps at the resort--the only gas beyond Azusa--because they lacked a required vapor recovery system.

“I understand where he’s coming from,” Stikkers said, “but we had to look at a long-term way of trying to restore that lake to something viable.

“In the late ‘70s we did a study of the lake and the Crystal Lake area, and the decision was to return it to a natural lake. There was too much human impact around the shore. Between the septic system from that store and a couple of restrooms we had there, they were contributing nutrients to the lake and aggravating the algae problem.

Evans, who was there in the 1940s and ‘50s, recalls when Crystal Lake was “one of the most popular places in Southern California . . . a regular Coney Island.”

Days were for fishing and swimming, nights for big bands and barbecues. Even now, if one ignores the unsightly state of the lake, the 8,000-foot summits of Mt. Islip and Mt. Hawkins are stunning on a crisp autumn day.

Crystal Lake may not be what it was in 1887, but it could be better than it is, providing an outdoors alternative that Judge Eaton would have enjoyed.

“Who can afford to go to the Eastern Sierra when gas gets to $3 or $4 a gallon?” Edmondson asked.