Solution to Pescadero fish kills is still elusive

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.