For more than a decade steelhead have been dying in Pescadero Creek in December and January.  The Creek has been so altered that it’s not even clear how the stream should behave any longer, reports the County Times.

The last leg in the journey is the most perilous one, when steelhead living in the brackish waters of the lagoon are caught in the influx of saltwater stirred up when the sandbar breaks, letting in the ocean. Scientists now believe the saltwater robs the lagoon of its oxygen in places, choking the fish as they attempt to swim out to sea.

This apparently natural phenomenon may be the result of years of tinkering with the ecosystem by farmers, fishermen and even California State Parks. Officials are now at odds over whether a man-made solution is called for, or whether more human involvement would do more harm than good.

"The system is so altered from all angles that it’s hard to say what would result in better habitat," said Joanne Kerbavaz, a resource ecologist with State Parks.
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The history of human interference in the creek began in the late 19th century, when local farmers would artificially breach the 40-foot sandbar at the mouth of the creek ahead of nature’s time to prevent the creek from backing up and flooding their farmland.

They built levees along the creek for the same purpose and watered their fields with it. Meanwhile, many ancient redwood stands in the upper watershed were clear-cut to create housing on the Peninsula — around 1906 and again after World War II.

This legacy of logging roads and erodable hillsides continues to push sediment into the creek and its tributaries, interfering with steelhead breeding and changing the creek’s shape.

Fisherman would breach the sandbar so fish could move upstream. State Parks did it to accelate the creek to create marshlands.  And no one is certain how the stream should flow any longer.

Pillar Point Harbor is filling with sand because of its breawakter. At the same time, the force of waves deflected by the breakwater is eroding the cliffs above Surfers Beach, reports the County Times.

When other harbors, such as Oyster Point Marina in South San Francisco, face the same problem, the common solution is to dredge the sand out and dump it on a nearby beach. A growing chorus of voices, surfers among them, suggest this is the perfect solution for both Pillar Point and Surfer’s Beach, which could clearly use the sand.

The problem is, that’s not an option at Surfer’s Beach, which lies within the protected boundaries of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

And that’s just the beginning of the complexity.

As part of the effort to create the new General Management Plan for Golden Gate National Recreation Area, we invite you to join members of the National Park Service planning team on a couple of short walks to help develop ideas for the future of key sites in San Mateo County. Two walks are scheduled at Rancho Corral de Tierra — 4,200 acres of open space on the slopes of Montara Mountain managed by Peninsula Open Space Trust which will soon become part of the park. The group will observe the conditions and resources in these areas and share ideas about what they might become in the future. These are excellent opportunities to have your ideas shape the emerging plan. Call (415) 561-4930 to RSVP and get meeting locations.

Rancho Corral de Tierra: North – Saturday March 29 , 10:00am to Noon
Meet representatives from the GGNRA and Peninsula Open Space Trust and explore the area along Martini Creek, between McNee Ranch State Park and the town of Montara. Talk about the area’s future as the southern gateway to the park.

Rancho Corral de Tierra: South – Saturday April 5 , 10:00am to Noon
Similar to the walk scheduled for March 29, but this walk will focus on lower San Vicente and Denniston Creeks between the towns of Moss Beach and El Granada.

Opportunities to discuss the park’s future will also be part of two other popular spring hikes: the "Redwood Ramble" at the Phleger Estate (March 8, led by NPS Ranger George Durgerian), and "Sweeney Ridge Saunter" (March 16, led by Nike veteran David Bridgman). Call (415) 561-4323 for information about these longer hikes.

The park’s website is GGNRA website.

The Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST)  has received a donation of a conservation easement on a 952-acre ranch along Highway 1 south of Half Moon Bay. Landowner Kathleen Scutchfield donated the easement, valued at $7.9 million, to preserve the scenic vistas and rich natural resources on the property, known as Toto Ranch.

"I’ve seen how development has been creeping up and down the coast and feel it’s important to make a statement and save this land just as it is, in its open, natural state," said Scutchfield. "POST has done so much to preserve the character of the Coastside, and I want to see that this beautiful land is protected forever." 

A native of Texas and a longtime supporter of POST, Scutchfield has called California home since 1971. She co-founded the nonprofit Until There’s a Cure Foundation, which raises funds for AIDS vaccine development, care and services for AIDS patients, and AIDS education. She is also a trustee emeritus of the San Francisco Ballet. An avid equestrian, she lives in Woodside, Calif. She purchased Toto Ranch in 1982 with her late husband, Donald.

The land is currently used for open space and grazing. The easement protects five acres of prime agricultural soils as well as grassland and hardwood and mixed evergreen forest. It also preserves a lengthy corridor of watershed along Tunitas Creek and its tributaries, which provide wildlife habitat for the federally threatened steelhead trout and federally endangered Coho salmon, as well as the California red-legged frog, white-tailed kite, peregrine falcon, Cooper’s hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, golden eagle and marbled murrelet.

KQED’s Quest visits Pillar Point Harbor to examine the mysterious, disturbing invasion of the unpleasant Humboldt squid from Mexican waters to northern California and beyond.

A mysterious sea creature up to 7 feet long, with 10 arms, a sharp beak and a ravenous appetite, has invaded ocean waters off Northern California. Packs of fierce Humboldt Squid attack nearly everything they see, from fish to scuba divers. Marine biologists are working to discover why they’ve headed north from their traditional homes off South America.

Last Wednesday night, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District’s Board of Directors voted unanimously to award a five-year grazing lease for its Tunitas Creek property to local coastside rancher Doug Edwards.  Mr. Edwards has been running a year-round cow-calf operation on the property since July 2005 under a year-to-year lease with the previous landowner.

The District’s grazing management plan for the Tunitas Creek property is a guide to conservation grazing that is tailored to suit the resource management needs of the land.  Conservation grazing is the use of livestock

Join Coastside Land Trust for native habitat restoration, Saturday, March 29 at Francis Beach, Half Moon Bay 12:30 to 3 pm. After an introduction to native plant habitat by a biologist, you will spend a couple of hours removing non-native plants and restoring native habitat at the Trust’s open space adjacent to Francis Beach.

Check in at the Francis Beach parking lot kiosk (at the end of Kelly Ave.) for directions to the work site. Parking is free for volunteers. Refreshments provided. All ages welcome.

You are invited to a meeting to learn about San Mateo County’s watersheds and to participate in the development of recommendations to protect and enhance watersheds, including a potential ordinance.

San Mateo County Hall of Justice
Monday, April 7, 7:00 p.m.
Board of Supervisors Chambers
400 County Center, Redwood City

County staff will present information about San Mateo County’s 34 watersheds, threats to the watersheds, current and anticipated regulations and potential actions to enhance watershed protection.

Following the presentation, members of the public are encouraged to comment and make recommendations.

The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors in December 2007 directed staff to engage the public with a series of workshops. Following these meetings in Spring 2008, staff will present public comments and recommendations to the Board of Supervisors at a public meeting.

To facilitate the outreach process, staff will present concepts that:

 

• Focus on activities such as grading on hillsides with slopes over 10 percent and in areas near streams.

 

• Apply existing County requirements, like the Local Coastal Program riparian policies, to all unincorporated areas to ensure consistency and reduce unnecessary new or duplicating requirements on property owners.

 

• Use a simple permit system that addresses environmental concerns but still allows most activities.

 

• Use a fair and reasonable approach for existing development on slopes and near hillsides, such as grandfathering in structures and activities that exist at the time the regulation is adopted.

 

• Allow reasonable exemptions for matters like routine maintenance, existing agricultural work outside riparian areas, or those activities that are already subject to comparable state, federal or local permit conditions.

For more information, please visit www.co.sanmateo.ca.us/OurWatersheds or call the County Manager’s Office at (650) 363-4123. The site also provides the opportunity for members of the public to comment and to view comments from previous meetings.

Please note that visitors to the Hall of Justice are required to pass through airport-style security.

Oceans need our help now more than ever. Declining fisheries, increasing quantities of marine debris, erosion problems, and oil and toxins polluting near shore waters are just a few of the threats facing our oceans today.  Save Our Shores, a Santa Cruz-based non-profit that once had an office in El Granada,  held a 4-day Ocean Leadership Conference from March 12-22 in order to provide a forum for those interested in engaging with these issues.

The Conference agenda included discussions on Marine Protected Areas, problems and consequences of marine debris, as well as more regionally-focused issues such as dredging at the Pillar Point Harbor, water contamination of local coastal watersheds, and the debris problem in Pilarcitos Creek.

The conference also engaged Coastside residents in a community assessment exercise that encouraged residents to identify local areas for concern and ways they wanted to see them addressed.  Some of the more prevalent issues discussed included the amount of trash on local beaches and creeks, the need for more educational resources focused on the hazards of marine debris, the need to identify point and non-point sources of pollution in the watershed, and the lack of coordination between local environmental organizations.

Conference participants will now work with Save Our Shores staff to further assess the needs of Coastside communities and then design and implement activities to engage their community in ocean conservation. 

In order to help address one of the more pressing issues, marine debris in the local watershed, Save Our Shores staff along with conference participants will be hosting a creek cleanup at Pilarcitos Creek on May 17th from 9am-1pm.  This event will be the first of many efforts to help address community needs and is a great opportunity to get involved and have your voice heard. 

Save Our Shores has been successful in coordinating thousands of volunteers in Santa Cruz County to remove marine debris from creeks and beaches.  They have also developed educational curriculum that is an interactive and informative approach to teaching youth and adults about the importance of marine conservation. Strengthened from the core, Save Our Shores now has the resources and programmatic capacity to provide valuable tools to Coastside residents who are interested in becoming more actively involved in the fight to save our precious marine environment.

Please come and lend a hand at the May 17th Pilarcitos Creek Cleanup. Save Our Shores staff are excited to work with Coastside residents and hope to engage with many more volunteers and concerned community members.

People interested in learning more about the Leadership Conference and the issues and concerns that were voiced can find speaker notes on the Save Our Shores website at http://saveourshores.org or call Emily Glanville the Programs Coordinator and Half Moon Bay contact at Save Our Shores (831) 462-5660 ext. 6.