Saturday, Jan 28, 2012
Hundreds of dead steelhead again Last Years Sandbar Breach Results…. What is killing fish in the Pescadero Marsh? The North Pond The Butano Creek Help The Pescadero Marsh Coastal Alliance for Species Enhancement asks Superior Court Judge for Help
Hundreds of dead steelhead again According to professional biologists and several fish and game experts, the State Parks project failed to alleviate the harmful conditions in the marsh, and in fact, due to poor operational practices, may actually be contributing significantly to the continued decline in species population. For the past 12 years, concerned citizens and other wildlife agencies have repeatedly asked State Parks to take immediate corrective action. Sadly, the Parks department’s repeated response has been “we need further studies.” Meanwhile, native species populations in the marsh have reached critically low levels.
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Last Years Sandbar Breach Results…. November 25, 2010 Dozens of dead Steelhead, trout, sculpin, flounder, eel, and dungeness crabs line the shorelines of the Pescadero/Butano Marsh. Scenes like the one you are about to witness have been occurring since 1995, many on a much larger scale. Search was conducted at 6:30am on the low tide the morning after breaching. At 10:30am the tide began pushing up into the lagoon, dead fish that had been on the shorelines began to float away with the tide.
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What is killing fish in the Pescadero Marsh? Geological Society of America (GSA) 2007 Report says “First observed in 1995, fish kills occur every year in association with the breaching of the sandbar. Water samples were collected at multiple times during the 2007 water year. Preliminary results indicate that isolated deep-water zones within the estuary system are anoxic during the late summer months. These anoxic waters are likely mixed into the estuary during breaching events and contribute to deterioration in environmental conditions required by coho salmon, steel head trout, and tidewater goby.”
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The North Pond Inoperable tidal gates allow fresh salt water to enter the North Pond, increasing salinity levels and wiping out habitat for Red-Legged Frogs, the tidewater goby, and the San Francisco Garter Snake. “North Marsh was to have been kept no more than mildly brackish, to ensure habitat for red-legged frogs. However, saline water spilled over the low levee and filled the marsh within months of the completion of the levee in 1993. In March 1994 the salinity of the Marsh, the ditch along the south side and the sag ponds exceeded 6.6 PPT and remained saline all year.” (Smith and Reis).
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The Butano Creek The Butano Creek channel has become obstructed and diverted so that steelhead can no longer migrate to their spawning grounds or return to the ocean. Read letters addressing the flooding and fish passage concerns of the Butano Creek.
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Help The Pescadero Marsh The Pescadero Marsh Natural Preserve is the largest coastal watershed between the Golden Gate and San Lorenzo River and is in dire need of some major conservation efforts, it shelters a diversity of wildlife in a complex of several habitats—a tidal estuary, freshwater marsh, brackish water marsh, dense riparian woods, and northern coastal scrub. Located at the confluence of two major streams, Pescadero Creek and Butano Creek, the marsh creates an important wintering ground for waterfowl on the Pacific flyway, as well as….
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Coastal Alliance for Species Enhancement asks Superior Court Judge for Help “This is a case where State Parks altered the marsh in the 1990’s and created an environmental calamity. Perhaps more alarming is the fact Fish and Game, the agency charged with enforcing the laws for state listed species has know about these violations for years and, for political reasons, has failed to enforce the laws against State Parks who is a sister Agency under the Resources Department,” said Ronda Azevedo Lucas, CASE’s attorney. “If a private citizen owned this marsh, they would likely be in jail.”
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Coastal Alliance for Species Enhancement from + M productions on Vimeo.

Hundreds of dead steelhead line the shorelines in the Pescadero Marsh.

SEARCH RESULTS
Searching through 4 feet high tule in thick muck and heavy rains is in no way going to yield an accurate count. These results are only a small percentage of actual mortality rates. Many others were likely washed out to sea during breach or remain on the bottom in deep waters. Also, many predatory birds were observed along the shorelines during breach. Due to lack of time and energy, many areas were not searched thoroughly. I personally counted 180 dead steelhead.

SEARCH SUMMARY
11/11/2011- During my search, which pains me to say I have been conducting every year for the past 15 years, I am mystified as to how this has been allowed to happen every year for 15 years without even the slightest of hands being reached out to help these poor fish. They are swimming around every year just waiting out a death sentence. This year’s death sentence was served on 11/11/2011, where I found many dead individual fish scattered around throughout the tule and along the shorelines. In many areas there were several or dozens of dead steelhead bunched together. I observed many steelhead at the surface grasping for air and watched several dead steelhead floating out into the ocean. Oxygen levels were very low and water quality was very poor giving off a strong sulfur odor. Fish ranged in size from four inches up to 24 inches, most of the dead fish I observed were between 8 and 10 inches. There appeared to be far more dead fish this year than in the last 4 or 5 years.

What is killing the fish?

Studies indicate that during long periods of sandbar closure when waters start to back up and jump low levees and flow through rusted open tidal gates within the Pescadero Marsh, a deadly natural process begins to happen. This natural process causes some waters within the Pescadero Marsh to become anoxic. Anoxic waters are areas of sea water or fresh water that are depleted of dissolved oxygen. Anoxic conditions result from several factors; for example, stagnation conditions, density stratification, inputs of organic material, and strong thermoclines; all of which are dangers present in the Pescadero Marsh. When oxygen is depleted, bacteria first turn to the second-best electron acceptor, which in sea water is nitrate. Denitrification occurs, then after reducing some other minor elements, the bacteria will turn its attention to reducing sulfate. The bacterial production of sulfide starts in the sediments, where the bacteria find suitable substrates, and then expands into the water column. This is what causes that strong “rotten egg” odor emanating from the marsh. It is so strong, that you can smell it as you drive along the marsh on Hwy 1 and along Pescadero Road. If the wind is right it could be smelled all the way into the town of Pescadero, which is [two] miles inland. When the sandbar breaks and these conditions exist all that anoxic water starts to funnel out into the ocean and when the bottom matter is stirred up it creates a very toxic environment. The fish are suffocated and die immediately.
According to geologic record, anoxic events happening in the past may have caused mass extinctions.

Studies have also shown that when State Parks projects were done in the 1990’s, it changed the natural way the sandbar opens and closes. Many levees were altered and even built by State Parks. They also installed a series of tidal gates allowing salt water to enter the north pond, which after only one year became inoperable because of rust. The tidal gates were never fixed and are still inoperable to this day as they remain rusted open. These modifications created new areas for water to fill within the system and have contributed to the anoxic conditions and have changed the natural opening and closing of the sandbar. With this in mind the proposed temporary solution of skimming the sandbar should not be denied by State Parks under the excuse that opening the sandbar is not natural. State Parks itself changed the natural ecosystem that nature created when they made these modifications. And as such, it became their sole responsibility to make sure the system continues to function correctly. As you can see they have failed the system by allowing these anoxic conditions to occur and have failed to protect everything living in the Pescadero Marsh for the last 15 years.

State Parks? You say you need more studies. What are you studying that takes 15 years to learn? Seriously, wake up. This problem is not just going to fix itself and it is not going to go away. If you do nothing again this will keep happening again and again as it has for the last 15 years. What part of this picture do you not understand? Your plan is to study, so as the years go by you will start to studiously count fewer and fewer fish until you count none. Then you will say “No more fish are dying it must be fixed.” When in reality none are dying because none are left, or you will say your other favorite thing, “IT’S NOT THAT BAD.”

Though when in reality it is that bad. It’s not just bad, it’s tragic. It’s tragic, because this could be fixed.

Every photo/orange dot you see WAS an INDIVIDUAL LIFE and was taken because of State Parks refusal to take ANY kind of PROACTIVE conservation efforts. State Parks REACTIVE conservation effort this year was to take 5 gallon buckets equipped with aerators in an attempt to try and rescue distressed steelhead. I stood there and watched them fill the buckets with the same water that was killing the fish in the first place. Adding a few bubbles with an aerator is not going to turn ANOXIC water into a magic healing solution for steelhead. If anoxic sea water becomes re-oxygenized, sulfides will be oxidized to sulfate. Never mind that hundreds of dead fish are already laying all over the place, it is pouring down rain and the water clarity is black. Good luck seeing anything healthy enough to rescue. I have been on site for these “fish kills” for the past 15 years and hardly ever have I seen an opportunity to rescue a distressed fish, the only ones you see are already dead. Where have you been for the last 15 years? The effort is appreciated, but you are trying to save a few lives after you have already sentenced all the others to death by doing nothing to stop this from happening in the first place, not to mention you have already killed thousands and thousands of fish over the past 15 years.
DO YOUR JOBS AND MANAGE THE LAND YOU HAVE BEEN ENTRUSTED WITH OR STEP ASIDE AND LET SOMEONE ELSE DO IT FOR YOU!!!
For 14 years you have hired and funded numerous biologist and scientist who have made recommendations, endorsed by Fish and Game. Yet you continue to ignore their recommendations for a proactive course of action that could prevent the severity of these fish kills in the future. It’s time for you to make an impact on the future of this valuable ecosystem and do the job you should have done already.

Please contact your State and Federal politicians whether in California or any other State to voice your outrage that a California Department of State Parks can continue to be allowed to destroy our Wild Steelhead Trout.

 

Help to Restore The Marsh!

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*ESTIMATES: STEEHEAD REARING*
*click to view

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Heron and other predatory birds were seen feeding on the shorelines.

November 25, 2010

January 3, 2008

KGO news report 2010

KGO news report 2003

Quotes From News Article, Reports, and Resources

  • San Mateo Times Nov 7, 2010
  • Jerry Smith Studies 1995-1996
  • HMB Review Nov 17, 2010
  • HMB Review Feb, 2010
  • HMB Review Dec 09, 2009

“We’re now 15 years in and the problem is still unsolved. When the system is in utter collapse, you don’t study that. You take action,” said Ronda Azevado Lucas, an attorney representing a group of Pescadero anglers and concerned citizens who are about to file a lawsuit accusing state resources agencies of abdicating their responsibility to protect sensitive fish and amphibians under the California Endangered Species Act.”

“Everyone acknowledges something went wrong in the 1990s, when State Parks, which owns the marsh, re-engineered the water flow with levees, culverts and water gates. Many of these fixes quickly became defective but were left in place.”

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“North Marsh was to have been kept no more than mildly brackish, to ensure habitat for
red-legged frogs. However, saline water spilled over the low levee and filled the marsh within
months of the completion of the levee in 1993. In March 1994 the salinity of the Marsh (F2),
the ditch along the south side (El) and the sag ponds (Sl) exceeded 6.6 PPT (Table 1) and
remained saline all year.” (Smith and Reis).

(more ...)

“If you or I owned this property, we’d definitely be in jail. There are endangered species here that are in peril,” said Ronda Azevado Lucas, an attorney representing the plaintiffs. “We were ignored, and that’s why we’re in court. We had no other options.”

“In the fall months, decomposing vegetation and the water column’s salty, sulfuric underlayers use up all the oxygen in the water, which essentially suffocates the aquatic ecosystem. The salty, sulfurous layers typically remain on the bottom of the marsh ponds, and aquatic species are able to veer away from low-oxygen areas. But in late fall, when the ocean waves burst through the sandbars, the currents stir up toxic layers in the lagoons and quickly make the water lethal.”

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“Each year of the past decade, as fall becomes winter, the Pescadero fisherman watches the silver bodies of steelhead trout wash up on the banks at Pescadero Marsh, hoping the government will heed his call for intervention and respond with action. It’s not happening fast enough.”

“My view on it is State Parks should be given a letter of intent which clearly describes the problems everyone has with the way State Parks is doing things, and (the department) should be given a chance to respond,” Steel said. “Once that’s on the table, it’s up to Parks. But if they continue to block everyone’s concerns without explaining the rationale for doing so, I have a feeling (the Native Sons) will file suit.”

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“Around this time each year, the sandbar separating Pescadero Marsh from the Pacific Ocean breaks, ushering in another season for fishing steelhead trout and, to varying degrees, another episode of what Coastsiders call the “fish kill.” It’s a yearly phenomenon in which fish turn up dead at a critical point in their lifecycle.”

“When the sandbar broke, a passerby mistook the out pour of brackish marsh water in the ocean for an oil spill, and reported the ominous black cloud to Fish and Game.”

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