Trout Drought

As one of the few remaining places in Southern California where steelhead trout still have a chance of survival, Ventura County will feel the greatest impacts from Tuesday’s announcement that the trout are being proposed for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The listing, if finalized next year as expected, will likely require local water agencies and cities to build new fish ladders, limit the amount of water they can take from the county’s rivers and possibly require the dismantling of a decades-old dam on Matilija Creek.

Ventura County water agency officials said they will cooperate with federal regulators to help save the fish from extinction. But they also said they plan to protect their water rights.

“I think we need to stress that we are going to be pro-active, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we are going to give the store away,” said Dick Barnett, assistant general manager of the Casitas Municipal Water District, which stands to lose the most financially from the proposed listing.

Local environmentalists and sport fishermen applauded the proposed listing, which they have been fiercely pursuing for years.

“I think this is a very, very important step,” said Mark Capelli, executive director of Friends of the Ventura River. “It means that the fish will now be given the sort of attention that had they been given initially, we wouldn’t be finding them on the brink of extinction.”

The once-thriving Ventura County population of steelhead--a type of rainbow trout distinguished by its salmon-like migration into the ocean--has dwindled to just a few hundred fish. Environmentalists blame the decline on overdevelopment, pollution and particularly construction of dams and other man-made obstacles that block the trout’s passage along rivers.

At this point, the trout have only been nominated to be listed as endangered. This protected status would not be official for a year. And what the proposed listing would cost the agencies--and eventually the consumer--is still unclear. But planning for major modifications in water use is already underway in Ventura County.

“We should expect water use to change,” said Maurice Cardenas, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game.

Some of the biggest changes would be on the Ventura River, affecting the Casitas Municipal Water District, which diverts and purifies river water to serve its 55,000 customers in western Ventura and the Ojai and Ventura River valleys--40% of them farmers and ranchers.

Casitas stores river water in Lake Casitas, a reservoir formed by the Robles Diversion Dam, about 14 miles upriver from the ocean.

The Department of Fish and Game says a fish ladder at the Robles dam is critically needed to protect the remaining steelhead population.

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Adding such a ladder--a system of staircases and screens that allow the trout to swim upstream to spawn--would open up more than two miles of spawning and rearing habitat on Matilija Creek and another seven miles of habitat along the north fork of the Ventura River, according to the agency’s steelhead management plan.

Another proposal considers removing Matilija Dam, a 100-foot-high dam built in 1948. Its construction blocked steelhead from a 10-mile stretch of Matilija Creek and its tributaries, all perfect breeding ground for the trout, which favor the cooler waters deeper into the mountains.

When the dam was completed, steelhead were caught in a fish ladder and trucked to the top of the dam for about a year. Then the program died out, leaving the steelhead without a route up Matilija Creek.

Over time, the dam has filled up with sediment, reducing its capacity from 7,000 acre-feet to 1,000 acre-feet. One acre-foot is enough to provide two families’ water needs for a year. While it has limited value, removing the dam would be expensive. Cardenas said another option would be to get the old fish ladder operational again.

Barnett, the Casitas water official, said the Department of Fish and Game has told his agency that there will be a $600,000 increase in local revenues from tourism if the steelhead population along the Ventura River can be boosted.

But that is of little comfort to a small water agency that may end up spending much more than that as a result of the trout’s listing, he said.

“My question is, what is it going to cost to generate these new revenues?” Barnett said. “There is going to be a lot of cost and a lot of sacrifice to generate that revenue.”

Water officials say they are often portrayed as the bad guy in issues such as this, where a species has been threatened because of human consumption.

Frederick Gientke, general manager of the United Water Conservation District, said he thinks that criticism is unfair.

“Being in the water industry, I always get poked in the ribs by people saying it is the dams, the dams, the dams,” he said. “But it is really the people, the people, the people. People have to drink water.”

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United, which supplies more than 300,000 water users in western Ventura County, already has a head start on steelhead protection. When the district built its Vern Freeman Diversion Dam five years ago, it included--under orders from the Department of Fish and Game--a $1.2-million fish ladder.

The Freeman dam traps rainwater along the Santa Clara River, which United then spreads across the Oxnard Plain to replenish ground-water supplies. Since the dam has been operational, Gientke said United has found three adult male steelheads headed up the ladder and 194 smolts--baby trout--traveling back downstream.

“There is a lot of pride knowing that it has been successful,” he said. “We’re delighted at that.”

Some fine-tuning of the fish ladder is still needed, said California Fish and Game’s Cardenas. A slow-moving eddy near the downstream approach over the dam may be confusing some of the smolts and preventing them from migrating toward the ocean, he said. To correct that problem and make a few more small adjustments would probably cost United another $10,000, he estimated.

United may eventually be forced to revise its water diversion practices, he said. Research indicates that the steelhead may be traveling upstream later in the season than previously expected.

Right now, United can start diverting water when it reaches a certain level in the rainy season. At that point, the fish ladder is turned off. Cardenas said this delayed migration might necessitate leaving the ladder on later in the season.

“This is just a potential issue that we might address later on,” he said. “By no means is it a defined problem.”

On Santa Paula Creek, upstream from the Freeman dam, plans are underway to rebuild an old fish ladder at Harvey Dam to help the steelhead on their upstream swim. Using federal funding, the city of Santa Paula and the Department of Fish and Game hope to start the project by next year. Because of downstream erosion, the old fish ladder is hanging completely out of the stream bed.

Despite difficulties facing the trout, rancher and fly-fishing enthusiast Steve Smith sees an occasional steelhead from his property on Santa Paula Creek. Smith said prior to construction of the Freeman dam, he used to go out and net steelhead in the pool below Harvey Dam, carrying them upstream to release them.

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As a citrus rancher, Smith said his livelihood comes before his hobby. But he believes that the proposed listing does not have to mean that farmers and consumers will suffer.

“I see the farm viewpoint as well as anybody, but I don’t see why we can’t co-exist,” he said. “Protecting something like the steelhead trout isn’t going to affect anybody’s livelihood.”

When he bought his property 10 years ago from a 95-year-old woman, Smith said, she told him of the days when the creek was overflowing with steelhead.

“I want to see steelhead in Santa Paula Creek again,” he said. “For selfish reasons. I think it would be the ideal cocktail in March--go out and watch the steelhead going up the creek in your front yard.”

* MAIN STORY: A3

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Steelhead’s Story

Once abundant from the Bering Sea to the Tijuana River, steelhead trout are so depleted that the federal government Tuesday nominated all runs in California and eight runs in Washington, Oregon and Idaho for protection.

Species: Salmo gairdnerii, the sea-run version of rainbow trout

Description: Silver in the sea, darker and spotted with reddish-pink stripe when migrating upstream to spawn. Up to 45 inches and 40 pounds. Average is under 10 pounds. Fond of love fast water and legendary with anglers for their powerful swimming.

Spawning: Young live in fresh water streams for up to four years, then at sea for two to three years. They return to their birthplace to spawn and, unlike salmon, often survive to do it again.

Southern California habitat: Santa Clara River, Ventura River, Sespe Creek, Santa Ynez River, Malibu Creek. Extinct in rest of Los Angeles County and Orange and San Diego counties.

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A Species’ Dilemma

Twenty-three stocks along the Pacific Coast are extinct; another 43 face a moderate to high risk of extinction. An estimated 250,000 adult steelhead exist in California, including about 500 in Southern California, and only 40 to 100 in Ventura River.

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Next:

* National Marine Fisheries Service, after a year of public comment and review, will decide if steelhead should be listed as endangered or threatened and how to protect the fish.

Source: National Marine Fisheries Service

The Steelhead’s Story

(San Fernando Valley Edition, B1)

Once abundant from the Bering Sea to the Tijuana River, steelhead trout are so depleted that the federal government Tuesday nominated all runs in California and eight runs in Washington, Oregon and Idaho for protection.

Species: Salmo gairdnerii, the sea-run version of rainbow trout

Description: Silver in the sea, darker and spotted with reddish-pink stripe when migrating upstream to spawn. Up to 45 inches and 40 pounds. Average is under 10 pounds. Fond of love fast water and legendary with anglers for their powerful swimming.

Spawning: Young live in fresh water streams for up to four years, then at sea for two to three years. They return to their birthplace to spawn and, unlike salmon, often survive to do it again.

Southern California habitat: Malibu Creek, Santa Clara River, Ventura River, Sespe Creek, Santa Ynez River. Extinct in rest of Los Angeles County and Orange and San Diego counties.

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A Species’ Dilemma

Twenty-three stocks along the Pacific Coast are extinct; another 43 face a moderate to high risk of extinction. An estimated 250,000 adult steelhead exist in California, including about 500 in Southern California, and only 50 to 75 in Malibu Creek

*

Next:

* National Marine Fisheries Service, after a year of public comment and review, will decide if steelhead should be listed as endangered or threatened and how to protect the fish.

Source: National Marine Fisheries Service