SANTA BARBARA – South Coast cities are working to restore the endangered steelhead trout population with creek improvement projects.
In the 1950s there were around 50,000 steelhead from Santa Maria to Baja California. Today, there are only 500.
The Mission Creek cement channel in Santa Barbara is dry due to little rain this winter. Decades ago when the creek was in its natural state, when the rains came so did the fish.
"We're working to recover the species and bring them back from the brink of extinction," said Brian Trautwein, Environmental Defense Center.
In November, the Environmental Defense Center along with the City of Santa Barbara and other groups, completed a $1million project to slow the channel water down to allow the fish to swim from the ocean to creek spawning grounds.
"The design concentrates the flow in the creek when it flows after a storm into this fish way," said Trautwein as he stood in the newly created channel. "The water will flow into the fish way and it will pond up behind these sills so it will be an adequate depth for the steelhead while they're migrating upstream."
Goleta is another city on the South Coast working to restore the population. The San Jose Creek project just started on Tuesday after 10 years of planning. The project will expand the capacity of the creek and add fish passage.
"Before the creek was modified and before the concrete channel was put in, steelhead used to migrate up the channel into the upper water shed to reproduce," said Steve Wagner, City of Goleta.
The channel was built in the 1950s and since then, the water has moved too fast for the fish to swim up. The new modifications will fix that and allow for the population to grow.
For more information on the Environmental Defense Center: http://www.edcnet.org/
For more information on the San Jose Creek project, click here: http://www.sanjosecreekproject.com/
