Point Reyes Light- October 15, 1998
Interior Secretary Babbitt lauds Valley dam volunteers
Fisheries advocates in the San Geronimo Valley got a boost Saturday from US Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who in a visit lauded their volunteer effort to repair a fish ladder and dam at the San Geronimo Valley Golf Course.
Doing the work were members of the sportsmen's group Trout Unlimited, the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, and other West Marin residents wanting to restore the run of the threatened coho salmon to the tributary of Lagunitas/Papermill Creek.
Roy's Dam, a former rancher's dam wedged between the seventh and eighth holes of the golf course, has been a longtime obstacle for the salmon.
Although a fish ladder was installed beside the dam in 1954, it has fallen into disuse. Many spawning fish exhaust themselves trying to leap over the dam's jagged apron, and smolts born above the dam have difficulty getting downstream when the upper creek dries out.
Lagunitas resident and Trout Unlimited conservationist Bob Chamberlain has devised a remedy that will eventually replace the dam and fish ladder with a series of artificial pools. On Saturday, before that starting that work, volunteers restored the fish ladder, stopped leaks from undercutting the dam, and lowered the gradient of its apron.
While the effort was not part of any Department of Interior program, Secretary Babbitt noted it was precisely the type of activism needed to restore river systems to their original glory.
"It has to be done by the people who live on that stream, know the water, and care about its future," he told a crowd of about 50 volunteers, park rangers, TV camera crews, and Saturday morning golfers.
Posing with a jackhammer, Babbitt said he wanted to encourage activists everywhere to remove obsolete dams as a method to restore river habitats for endangered and threatened species like coho salmon.
The Lagunitas/Papermill creek watershed is home to about 500 coho salmon, or about 10 percent of the species remaining in California. Its importance has not been lost on Chamberlain, who's devoted to saving coho and steelhead trout runs for future generations.
"This is a start, but we've got a whole watershed to work on, folks," he told the crowd after an introduction by Babbitt. "It's going to take a lot of work into the next century to restore this public trust resource."