Conservation Highlights
Giving Fish a Fighting Chance - Deer Creek, Boulder Creek
After. Tom Bird and his wife Manuela pose in front of a new bridge installed with help from Partners in Restoration. The bridge gives threatened steelhead trout unrestricted passage to their historic spawning grounds.
An outdated concrete bridge over Deer Creek that connected area landowners stood as a major roadblock to steelhead migration.
"During storms, debris would be caught in the culverts, preventing fish from passing through," tom explained. "During drier periods, the water flowed under the damaged culverts, preventing the fish from traveling upstream to their spawning grounds."
Historically, thousands of fish inhabited Deer Creek. the San Lorenzo River watershed, of which Deer Creek is part, once supported the largest salmon and steelhead fishery south of San Francisco. But, in recent years only a tiny fraction of fish have reached headwaters because of barriers like antiquated bridges. The bulky bridge and undersized culverts also caused extreme flooding during heavy rains, eroding the streambank and sending hundreds of tons of sediment downstream each year. That resulted in muddying the otherwise clear creek and eventually the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, of which Deer Creek is a tributary.
Bridge over Troubled Waters
Before. An old concrete bridge and narrow culverts blocked fish from migrating upstream in Deer Creek.
Through Partners in Restoration, developed in concert with the Natural Resources Conservation Service and Resource Conservation District (RCD) of Santa Cruz County, Tom, Manuela and their neighborhood road association replaced the old bridge and rusty metal culverts with a free-span crossing that gives fish much-needed wiggle room. They also planted native trees and grasses to keep soil along the streambanks in place and out of the water.
According to RCD of Santa Cruz County Project Manager Kelli Camara, the new bridge gives imperiled fish unrestricted access to more than two miles of high-quality breeding habitat upstream.
"We're helping turn this part of Deer Creek back into the fish highway it used to be," Kelli said. "tom and Manuela have seen more fish in the last two years than in the previous 15." Kelli is also quick to point out that if it weren't for Partners in Restoration, the project never would have happened. She estimates tom and Manuela would have had to secure permits from six government agencies, spend upwards of $15,000 of their road association's money, and devote two to three years (perhaps more) to shepherd the permits through the approval process.