Point Reyes Light - October 25, 2002

More spawning area coming to Woodacre

By Ivan Gale

This winter a 190-foot culvert on the part of the Woodacre Creek that passes through the Woodacre Improvement Club will block off up to a half mile of prime spawning habitat for the Valley’s coho salmon.

Next year however, the same 190-foot culvert will be opened for the first time in 39 years and returned to a natural creekbed, thanks to a restoration proposal that won key funding from state and federal sources last week.

In the same week, the project was awarded $272,000 from the State of California’s Riparian and Riverine Project and $55,000 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, adding to previous grants from the Coastal Conservancy and Marin Municipal Water District.

In 2000 the creek was identified as being one of the most important streams in all of California by the National Marin Fisheries Service because of the presence of coho and steelhead. Last winter, fish counts by MMWD and the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network in the watershed observed 739 coho.

Woodacre Creek’s importance

San Geronimo Valley Planning Group creek committee member Liza Crosse wrote the grant proposal and said the importance of Woodacre Creek is demonstrated by the fact that a third of the observed coho in the watershed ended up spawning in the tributary.

Crosse, who also works as administrative aide to Supervisor Steve Kinsey, said she hopes with the culvert’s removal, the numbers will increase for the migrating salmon and steelhead.

"This will open one-third to one-half mile of fabulous habitat upstream that fish currently are having a very hard time reaching," she said explaining the culvert is so long it provides too difficult a hurdle for the fish to pass through.

In addition to restoring the buried stream the project will refurbish banks downstream as well as 20,000 square-feet of degraded riparian area on Woodacre Improvement Club grounds.

The restored banks will be secured with bio-logs and grading as well as with the planting of native species like California bay, valley oak, bigleaf maple, willow, blackberry, and snowberry. A strong educational component will allow schoolchildren to participate in the replantings. The 9,000 square feet of concrete debris from a defunct swimming pool will be removed, and the Club’s tennis court that was adjacent to the culvert will be replaced with a new court that will be constructed 10-14 feet further from its original position near the culvert.

Second culvert

A second culvert, running under Crescent Avenue, will be replaced with a fish-friendly, arched culvert with a natural stream bottom.

As part of an access easement the county will obtain from the Improvement Club, biking and walking trails, picnic areas and a small rotunda will be built.

Ann Jones, a board member of the Woodacre Improvement Club as well as the Planning Group’s creek committee, said permitting a county easement over the property was not an easy decision for the Woodacre board.

She said there was an initial concern from its board members that the easement would somehow not benefit the club, but were persuaded the project would beautify the land and provide more recreational opportunities.

"It’s been an unsightly situation for many, many, years," Jones said. "We were faced with the fact that the culvert was going to fail and make the problem 100 times worse."

Other grants

In related news, the Marin Resource Conservation District (RCD) has recently been awarded $509,000 for a Lagunitas Creek Watershed improvement program from the California Regional Water Quality Board.

The RCD, partnering with Trout Unlimited, MMWD, SPAWN, Marin County, and the National Park Service, will use the funds towards improving water quality and fish habitats in the form of watershed studies, as well as fencing and erosion control projects.

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