“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.”

“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).

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”