Water District Board Rejects Citizen Advisory Committee Recommendations on Stream Ecology

Article by Richard McMurtry

The Santa Clara Valley Water District Board held a regular meeting on July 28th, and discussed efforts to restore the salmon and trout fisheries on Santa Clara County streams (see agenda packet, p 72). The end result was a step backwards from its commitments towards the salmonid restoration.

In a move with a short public notice (only 72 hours notice), Water District CEO Beau Goldie proposed to remove Chinook salmon from the fishery restoration strategy and replace it with native fish. Debate has raged in past years as to whether the Chinook salmon are native or not. So, in effect, the change replaced the previous strategy to “Restore the trout and salmon population” with an ambiguous “we won’t restore the salmon because we don’t know if they are native” or an even more ambiguous “maybe we will, maybe we won’t restore the salmon”. All the Board achieved is reigniting a controversy that had been thought settled in 2003.

A member of the Santa Clara Creeks Coalition implored them to not take the salmon out of the policy framework without first convening a science panel to consider the scientific data on whether the salmon were native or not. Despite this recommendation, the Board refused to reject the change proposed by the CEO and instead allowed the change to pass. However, the Board did express an interest in convening a science panel, but no member proposed a motion to do so. What is bizarre about this is that the Water Supply division has already agreed to develop a plan to restore the Chinook salmon population. The result is that the Board now has contradictory policies shaping its approach to salmon restoration – a contradiction that will generate ambivalence towards salmon restoration rather than the enthusiasm needed to develop innovative conservation measures for the salmon. Things at the Water District don’t bode well for the salmon.

Water District staff opposed all the recommendations of the Environmental and Water Resources Committee (EWRC) with respect to the Board recommitting to restoring the salmonid fishery within 15 years and preserving the fishery during drought. The Board mostly went along with staff recommendations. The only positive outcome was a watered-down version of the recommitment to the 15 year goal. In the Board-adopted version, staff would develop a strategy at some unknown point in the future. We will have to wait years for the CEO’s Master Planning process to reach completion with no independently facilitated technical input process. The best ideas will never even be presented to the Board.

The EWRC’s recommended drought policies sought to distinguish between “water needs” and “water preferences” – “needs” like health and safety and “preferences” like lawn watering.    Staff opposed making this distinction, and the Board agreed. The EWRC recommended inserting an objective “Adequate quantity and quality of water will be delivered to the streams” to protect the fish and stream ecology. The Board refused to adopt this objective, instead referring it to the cities and water purveyors to see what those groups thought about the policy.

Sign up for Coastal Cleanup Day

Well, the third Saturday of September means it is California Coastal Cleanup Day! We invite you to come out and enjoy a morning of meeting new people, seeing your neighborhood creek in a new light, and participating in one of the largest volunteer events in the state.

A bit of the trash to be collected

Thanks to the Santa Clara Valley Water District and its Creek Connections Action Group , you can easily find a place to volunteer. We'd like to suggest you join us at our site #32 at the Tully Ballfields in San Jose near Highway 101. We plan to have 100 people out and excited about cleaning this stretch of creek. There is plenty of trash to be picked up.

Our partners, the Sierra Club - Loma Prieta Chapter, will be working closely with us to promote this event. So, please sign up to participate through the Eventbrite registration so we know who is coming.

Another collection of trash to be hauled out

Stevens Creek Fishery: Restoration or Extirpation?

Article by Richard McMurtry

Stevens Creek was once one of our county’s streams with the best potential for restoration of a healthy abundant run of steelhead trout. Fishery biologists found adult steelhead as well as smolts (young fish headed to the sea). The Santa Clara Valley Water District had stated in 2003 a commitment to perform the necessary actions to create the habitats to restore the fish population to a healthy condition. Also as a result of a victorious pollution suit in 2013 against the Permanente Quarry in Cupertino, actions to improve habitat in upper Permanente Creek will be implemented in the next few years.

All these encouragements gave rise to the idea of finding ways that Stevens Creek steelhead could swim upstream and then get over to nearby Permanente Creek to spawn and rear their young. One option is to convert a flood water channel (that joins Permanente Creek to Stevens Creek) into a fish passage way to let fish go from Stevens Creek into spawning and rearing habitats in Permanente Creek.

Dead trout, minnows, crayfish in Stevens Creek

All this is well and good. But the Water District, facing a drought, decided to save water for lawn watering and other human needs by turning off the flow of water from the Stevens Creek pipeline into the creek. Any steelhead remaining in the creek were wiped out by the dryback and became food for raccoons and herons!

There are two things that need to be done to protect and restore our steelhead.  

1. Remove the barriers to fish migrating from the Bay to the upper reaches of the stream to spawn and rear their young.
2. Develop a fish rescue and relocation plan to move the steelhead to year-round reaches of the stream above the dam IF there is not enough water to keep the stream wet.

Silver Creek Parkway Cleanup Successes

On Saturday, August 2, 2014, 50 people came out to the Silver Creek Parkway in San Jose to help clean out the trash from Coyote Creek. This group was diverse, including several people from the Sierra Club, the Mormon Church, San Jose State students, Key Club students, and many others.

Part of the team in front of the Parks Trailer

Ranger Ali Henry from Hellyer County Park ensured all the volunteers had the materials they needed, which came in the form of a trailer chock full of shovels, gloves, grabbers, and lots of plastic bags for the trash. Her team went through the cleanup area after the event to collect nearly 2 tons of trash!

Here is the list of materials we collected:

Ranger trucks overloaded with trash

67 bags of trash

27 Tires

3 Wood boxes

3 Pallets

3 Car Seats

4 Plywood sheets

5 Large pieces of metal

5 Shopping carts/pull behind carts

1 Bike frame

1 Propane tank

1 Fire extinguisher

Thanks to our sponsors the Sierra Club - Loma Prieta Chapter, Santa Clara County Parks, and Coyote Creek Neighborhood Association. Without their efforts to get the word out and bring people to this event, it would not have been as successful. For more photos, see our Facebook page.

One of our young volunteers said that he'd "never had so much fun picking up trash!" He and others said they'd like to come again. So, get ready for Coastal Clean Day.

City/County Plan to End Homelessness

The Environmental Community has been included in the conversation about ending homelessness in Santa Clara County. On July 30, homeless advocates, agencies, and environmental groups got together to discuss environmental impacts and considerations for a document called "Community Plan to End Homelessness in Santa Clara County." This high-level document brings many groups together to look at the problem of homelessness in the county and big goals to end homelessness by 2019. This effort is led by Destination: Home with input from over 50 partners. 

Representatives from Audbon, Friends of Coyote Creek Watershed, Sustainable Silicon Valley 3D and others discussed the impacts that the homeless have on our environment and how providing homes will lighten that burden.

From the meeting, one interesting document was the statistics related to homeless individuals in Santa Clara County. Here are a few numbers:

• 7, 631 homeless individuals (2013)
• 67% are male
• 87% lived in Santa Clara County before becoming homeless
• 74% are unemployed
• 42% sleep outdoors or in encampments

With these numbers, we can see how ending homelessness in Santa Clara County would help the environment as well as the people who experience this untenable situation everyday.