Steelhead Trout Nominated for Endangered Status

Steelhead trout, the mighty sea-running fish beloved by anglers, was nominated Tuesday by the federal government for protection as an endangered and threatened species throughout California and most of the West Coast.

Steelhead from Los Angeles County to the Russian River north of San Francisco and in the Central Valley are hovering close to extinction and should be listed as endangered, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service’s proposal.

Famed fisheries to the north--including the Trinity and Klamath rivers near Eureka, most of the Pacific Northwest’s Columbia River and Idaho’s Snake River--also were proposed for endangered or threatened status, the agency said.

A symbol of the West’s swift and powerful coastal streams, steelhead are rainbow trout that migrate to the ocean like salmon. Upon maturity, they battle their way upstream, returning to their birthplace to spawn, and unlike their salmon cousins, they are often strong enough to make the journey again.

Yet steelhead have not been hardy enough to survive their biggest obstacle--the damming and development of rivers. Mirroring the fate of most varieties of salmon, about 90% of the sea trout south of Canada have vanished, federal fishery biologists said Tuesday. In Southern California, where fewer than 500 still spawn, 99% are gone.

Calling revival of trout vital to the Pacific Coast’s economy and natural heritage, Hilda Diaz-Soltero, the fisheries service’s southwest regional director, urged strong partnerships among federal, state and local agencies and private landowners. She said dams need improvements and stream beds damaged by runoff, low flows, erosion and development need to be repaired--all challenging and potentially expensive tasks.

“To bring this species back, we have to mobilize actions by everybody,” Diaz-Soltero said. “This is the most complex and the largest geographic listing ever undertaken by any agency.”

The national fisheries agency, facing a court order to act this month after conservation and fishing groups filed suit, now has one year to make its final decision on whether to list the steelhead.

Fishery experts hope that it’s not too late to save the remnants of Southern California’s once-thriving trout runs--Malibu Creek in the Santa Monica Mountains, the Santa Clara and Ventura rivers in Ventura County and the Santa Ynez River near Santa Barbara.

Steelhead are already extinct south of Malibu Creek and the remaining runs along the southern coast are the most imperiled of any along the entire West Coast.

“The farther south we go, it’s going to be the hardest, because you are already working at the limit of the natural geographic range of steelhead,” Diaz-Soltero said. “You don’t have as much water naturally. But the fish are still there and we can restore populations back into those rivers.”

Sespe Creek, the main tributary of the Santa Clara River, is considered one of the best hopes for recovery because it is still in a relatively wild condition.

Jim Edmondson, executive director of California Trout, a fishing and conservation organization, is confident that the four steelhead runs in Ventura, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties can be revived rapidly with dam and stream bed improvements. The goal is to re-create a viable sport fishery by 2010, he said.

“To think we have salmon--and that’s what essentially steelhead is--right here at the back door of Los Angeles is remarkable,” Edmondson said. “We do believe these fish have a charismatic value. And it’s very well known that we will get a measurable economic payoff, more than just the aesthetics of a healthy population.”

Yet recovery cannot come without a steep price.

Restoring the trout entails carefully rearing wild stocks to maintain genetic diversity, fixing damaged stream-side vegetation, improving poor water quality, and--most important--unfettering the trout’s path to its fresh-water spawning grounds.

Water utilities in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties might have to build multimillion-dollar “fish ladders”--a system of gentle staircases and screens that allow the trout to swim upstream to spawn--and release more water into the Ventura and Santa Ynez rivers.

“Certainly the listing has the potential to impact our water supply and the way we operate,” said Dick Barnett, assistant to the general manager at the Casitas Municipal Water District, which serves 55,000 people in western Ventura and the Ojai and Ventura River valleys. “This is going to be a major challenge for everybody in the state.”

At Malibu Creek, Los Angeles County and state officials could seek funding to remove Rindge Dam, a 70-year-old, obsolete concrete structure 2 1/2 miles up Malibu Canyon from the ocean. The dam has caused beach erosion in the Malibu area as well as depletion of trout, but dismantling it is estimated to cost as much as $15 million, Edmondson said.

On the Santa Clara River, the United Water Conservation District built a $1.2-million fish ladder at the Freeman Diversion to allow steelhead to reach Sespe Creek. Only three adult fish have passed through there, but about 200 juveniles have been heading downstream--a sign that the system has potential with some fine-tuning.

Frederick Gientke, manager of the United district, said water suppliers get unfairly blamed for depleting fisheries when they are only meeting a basic need of a burgeoning population. “People gotta drink water,” he said. “They can’t drink fish.”

Before the 1950s, when dams were built and streams were channeled to provide water and flood control to cities and farms, steelhead swam dozens of fast-moving rivers stretching from Washington’s Olympic Peninsula to the Tijuana River. The Los Angeles and Santa Ana rivers used to be virtual freeways for trout from the ocean to the mountains.

“I see both sides of the coin,” said Craig Fusaro, a Santa Barbara fly fisherman who belongs to two local groups that fought for the listing. “It depends on whether you like to look at trout or you have to pay water bills. I happen to do both. But it has been, in my view, all one way for 50 years. I think you can have water for people without losing all our wildlife as well.”

Federal officials stressed that a listing decision does not mean they will hand down prescriptions to the state or local water agencies. Instead, they said, it means a partnership.

One of the biggest challenges for recovery is in Oregon and Washington, along the upper and lower Columbia River, where massive hydropower plants have depleted salmon and trout.

About $75 million a year is being spent on short-term improvements at the dams and flows have been altered seasonally to help the fish, but long-term agreements are still needed, said William Stelle, the fisheries service’s northwest regional director.

“The progress that we have made over the last five years is a huge surprise and a huge tribute to this region,” Stelle said, “so I’m actually fairly optimistic that we’ll get something done. People here will not tolerate losing salmon and steelhead.”

Recovery could also prove difficult at Northern California streams damaged by timber harvesting and mining, and along the inland Sacramento, American and San Joaquin rivers, where fish ladders are in place but salmon and trout are harmed by insufficient water flows and habitat damage.

“Fish ladders have a long history of not being enough. It turns out the fish don’t use them or not enough of them use them,” said Camm Swift, a Loyola Marymount University biologist who specializes in studying fish.

The federal action could prompt the Wilson administration to implement a steelhead restoration plan that has been under development for years.

Eight years ago, the Legislature and Gov. George Deukmejian ordered the state Department of Fish and Game to develop a strategy to bring steelhead back. But it wasn’t until February of this year that the recovery plan was finished and signed by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Times staff writer Mary Pols in Ventura contributed to this report.