West Marin residents hoping to see more coho salmon spawning in local creeks are jubilant over a recent announcement that the Park Service will get to spend up to $800,000 on restoring local coho runs.
"It's wonderful," said Dogtown's John O'Connor, who has helped count coho in Olema Creek and is keen on seeing the salmon return to Bolinas' Pine Gulch Creek, where salmon haven't been seen since 1973.
O'Connor is part of a Bolinas group that recently has been working with several organic farmers along Pine Gulch Creek to keep creek flows high enough to lure stream-running salmon.
Vegetable farmer Peter Martinelli said this week the creek's salmon disappeared when the shortest access route between the creek and ocean through Bolinas Lagoon silted up.
The group is also eagerly awaiting funds to restore Bolinas Lagoon. O'Connor noted that the recently updated Bolinas Lagoon Management Plan calls for restoration of the creek.
West Marin is a perfect place for a coho comeback, he said. "We don't have logging, and we don't have any development going on in West Marin," O'Connor added.
It's widely believed that West Marin creeks account for about 10 percent of the state's coho population.
The Park Service money will come from a National Resource Preservation Program fund. The outlay was prompted inpart by last month's decision to add the coho to the federal list of threatened species.
Don Neubacher, superintendent of the Point Reyes National Seashore, said this week that Lagunitas Creek in Samuel P. Taylor Park wasn't included because Marin Municipal Water District has already begun restoration efforts there, but said the park might eventually help out.
He said his first goal is to hire a fulltime fisheries biologist for the National Seashore. Money will also be used to help volunteers who already have been counting fish in Olema Creek to improve their studies.