Current Events Swirl in Cambria's Santa Rosa Creek

Lynne Harkins

Synopsis: This photo report, featuring picturesque Santa Rosa Creek, highlights two different bridge crossings which need improvements along the creek's meandering path through Cambria. The creek is central to the life of the town and its agricultural and coastal tourism economy and is protected by the Coastal Act. Known to be attractive to endangered Steelhead and home to many other special status species, Santa Rosa Creek warrants the considerable attention it's receiving as the Santa Rosa Creek Watershed Management Plan is developing. Readers are invited to consider recent events and citizens', agencies, and the County's roles in good stewardship of the creek.

County Obstructs Fish and Game's #1 Priority for Bridge Removal While Pressing to Demolish Questionable Barrier Downstream

Recently a presentation, called Watershed Synthesis, about the preliminary draft of the Santa Rosa Creek Watershed Management Plan was made to  stakeholders by facilitator Stephnie Wald of Central Coast Salmon Enhancement.  She stressed more than once that it was designed to be a starting point from which stakeholders, all of whom are participating on a voluntary basis, could proceed to add or to subtract elements as they felt necessary.  The draft includes a veritable cornucopia of information about this exceptionally beautiful coastal creek watershed.

A more galvanizing piece of news, however, than the watershed draft plan came in an update about the biggest and most widely-anticipated project proposed to improve habitat for endangered Steelhead  in Santa Rosa Creek, as well as conditions for users of Ferrasci Road.  California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) senior biologist Margaret Paul, a fisheries specialist, confirmed that interactions with the County  in regards to scope and permitting for the long-awaited Ferrasci Road Bridge replacement were so problematic and protracted that it got to be too late to qualify for the current cycle of funding for the bridge replacement project.  Slated for funding by a federal grant, the project was to have gone forward this summer, but will now be put aside owing to obstacles raised by the County, time constraints and the resultant loss of funds.  The disappointment and sense of frustration in the room was palpable. 

Many at the meeting found it incomprehensible that the County would interfere with such a badly-needed improvement for Ferrasci Road users and for steelhead habitat in Santa Rosa Creek.  Designated by CDFG as the number 1 priority for removal in all of San Luis Obispo County,  the Ferrasci Road bridge is a monumental barrier to Steelhead passage up the creek, as the fish seek out suitable spawning habitat; typically further than two miles  upstream from the creek mouth.  In Santa Rosa Creek, after the federally endangered ocean-going trout enter the creek, they travel upstream just about three miles before they encounter the functional equivalent of the Great Wall of China stretching across the Creek.  The clumsy, imposing bridge offers three "passable" metal culverts embedded in the concrete for high water and only a narrow stepped channel at one end to accommodate the fish in times of lower water.  It's an obvious challenge to passage for steelhead in this "blue line creek", which is otherwise considered a good bet for assisting in the recovery of Steelhead populations.  A blue line creek is by definition, a creek, stream or watercourse indicated by a solid or broken blue line on a U.S. Geologic Survey 7.5 minute series quadrangle map. 

With the County putting obstacles in the way of the removal of this bridge, according to Greenspace's Executive Director Rick Hawley,  "The fishery will continue to suffer greatly because of bureaucratic squabbling.  Greenspace has spent years getting this fishery improvement project funded and to suddenly see it disappear because of legal hairsplitting tells us plenty about the priorities the government sector seems to focus on these days.   This project is good for the fishery, improves habitat and there is no development associated with it—it is purely for the ecosystem."

Troubled Waters Over Bridge

For humans there's a recurring passage problem, as well.  Both historically and into the present, Ferrasci Road bridge is subject to storm debris accumulation and blockages which cause the swollen creek waters to episodically flood over the road- making it impassable.  Understandably, people thought that the County would want to cooperate in getting that taken care of, especially as it was at minimal cost to the County. Below are photos of  Ferrasci Road Bridge closed by debris and flooding -the first being a photo from the '60's, the second from 2006.

Photos provided by non-profit Cambria Greenspace,
which is working with CDFG on Ferrasci Road Bridge replacement effort.

The Ferrasci Road Bridge replacement effort will regroup and continue, likely with more public awareness and support, when federal funds are again available.

Red Penciling the Blue Line Creek

Meanwhile, in another part of the forested creek-about a half a mile seaward, County Public Works is busy red penciling the creek's  blue line where it passes under a different bridge at Main Street.  The two situations invite some comparison.  In the interests of full disclosure, it should be told that this reporter is appealing SLO County Public Works proposed Main St. Bridge  replacement project to the Coastal Commission on the grounds that, among other things, it doesn't sufficiently consider alternatives that might reduce the destruction of the site's lavishly vegetated riparian habitat.  

Whereas the Ferrasci bridge is to be replaced in the same alignment as the old bridge, the County's proposed Main St. bridge replacement would be built upstream, parallel to the old bridge, outside of the County's existing Right- of -Way- at an additional cost of  $90,000 and at an incalculable cost in terms of destruction of riparian habitat which provides many vital ecological services about we are still learning.  Riparian habitat is designated ESHA (Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area) and in the Coastal Zone Land Use Ordinance, it's destruction is expressly prohibited except for roadway/bridge crossings where there is no "feasible alternative".  According to the SLO County Local Coastal Plan, the County must  present at least two other reasonable, feasible alternatives to their proposal.  Let the reader be the judge of how vigorously Public Works pursued other options when one of the alternatives considered entails simply flipping the proposed bridge to the downstream side of the current bridge- where it would likely not be welcomed into the front yard of the adjacent house. 

Click on this image for a larger, more detailed, PDF file version.

The county responded to this reality check by saying that it was a "technically feasible" alternative . . . more on this below.

The Main Street bridge was built in 1922 as part of historic old Highway 1 which passed through Cambria's historic East Village.  According to the cultural resources person at the state level of Caltrans, the bridge has never  been evaluated individually for historical significance, but instead has been put into a group of bridges of like type and assigned a category of being ineligible for historical standing.  The bridge is reinforced concrete and is perfectly safe according to Caltrans criteria. It is referred to as "functionally obsolete" because its two lanes are somewhat narrow. This often causes some slowing of vehicles traveling in opposite directions if they happen to have to pass each other on the bridge.  This hardly seems a bad thing given the current pedestrian and  bicyclist challenges on Main Street itself.  In front of the Board of Supervisors  on June 22nd, Public Works said that it was going to have a Class 2 bicycle lane installed on Main Street; but there's been no sign of that for the past 30 years and there was no future date cited for such a project to commence.

Following Main Street's multiple curves down the hill from new, (1960's) HWY 1, there's a truly picturesque entry into Cambria's East Village.  Approaching the southern end of the old bridge at Santa Rosa Creek,  one passes a flourishing gatekeeper oak, banks of well-established willows and elderberry- many with tree-like dimensions. Beyond them stand the welcoming cottonwoods, tall and elegant with their shiny, heart-shaped leaves, exhibiting a poplar family trait as their leaves rotate and flutter on supple stems in response to slight breezes.  It's an inviting and lovely sight , not much changed over several decades. Quintessentially rustic and rural, one crosses the bridge and then has the option to turn right onto Santa Rosa Creek Road to go out towards the high school and to the agricultural land beyond or to veer towards the left and to head into the East Village.

Most of this riparian vegetation, in photos below, upstream of the bridge for 40-50' will be destroyed by the County's proposed bridge. Additionally, more will fall further upstream and downstream, as well, when the new slopes, bull-dozed into being with the proposed replacement bridge, are armored with rock.  Called rip-rap, the practice of thusly armoring creek slopes with rock is explicitly counseled against by the new Santa Rosa Creek Watershed Management Plan, which hopes to inspire best practices in creek stewardship by landowners. The Coastal Commission staff, in early comments on the proposed project, also asked that its use be avoided if possible. 

Rip-rap's ill-effects are referred to in the County's look at biological impacts of their plan.  Endangered Red-legged Frogs, for instance, are not well served by its use:

"Permanent impacts to California red-legged frog could result from the installation of riprap along the Santa Rosa Creek channel. Installation of riprap has the potential to increase the velocity of stream flow, decrease the amount of overhanging vegetation which would result in a reduction of insect drop and an increase in water temperatures, reduce stream bank complexity, and thereby remove frog refugia."

"Riparian vegetation also provides important 'ecosystem services,' including sequestering pollutants and excess nutrients entering streams from surrounding landscapes. These effects are so great that regulatory agencies are increasingly recognizing that effective management of aquatic ecosystems requires effective management of the terrestrial plant communities that border these environments." Reference

So the loss of this vegetation, with rock armoring in its stead, seriously compromises the habitat value for all of the more common and special-status species* that live in or near the creek. Added to this is the likelihood that, with the built up new curve in the road and the elevation of the proposed new bridge, visitors and residents will no longer have a sweeping view of just riparian growth, but rather one of "Texturing and staining of the concrete" in the 150 foot bridge ( so it will blend right in!) featuring views of the rip-rap.

From the County's document: "Under worst case scenario, the riprap proposed to protect the new bridge abutments may be visible from Main Street. However, once replacement vegetation has matured views of the riprap will be obscured."   Reality check here . . . it will take many years, if all goes well, before replacement vegetation softens that kind of intrusion!

When asked why the County was persisting in the use of this discredited rock-slope protection, a longtime advocate for the health of coastal creeks, with a look of exasperation, replied "Inertia!"

In justifying its proposed new realigned bridge alternative and the demolition of the old bridge, Public Works also cites debris problems related to a relatively narrow center pier, shown in photo above with the pool at its base. It's the vertical piece of the T structure of the current bridge where its two 45' spans meet in the middle. However, a couple of longtime creek watchers said they had never heard of a problem back-up at the Main Street Bridge and the County offered no specific examples of such problems. It actually is responsible for slowing the water flow a bit and creating a deepened, scoured pool which has great naturalized habitat value with dozens of juvenile fish (most likely Steelhead) darting about in it when it was visited recently; although the pool was smaller than described below.  (Video available upon request from Lynn Harkins.)

From the County's environmental document looking at potential biological impacts:

"Removal of the instream bridge pier footing would significantly alter the hydrology of the channel. Pier footing removal would result in the loss of a backwater pool, a scour pool, and the loss of high quality habitat created by undercutting around the existing instream pier footing. The backwater pool was approximately five feet deep at the time of survey and was 20 feet by one foot in size. The scour pool was approximately four feet deep and four feet by 12 feet in size. The undercut pier footing is approximately 12 fee t long. Loss of these features constitutes a permanent impact, as both the backwater pool and the scour pool would be lost due to creek flow action once the pier footing is removed and flow is   restored to the creek. Habitat created by the undercutting of the pier footing would also be permanently lost when the pier footing is removed. "

County's contractors are really going to have to go to extreme lengths to replace and to repair habitat that will be lost in the current proposal. There is no break out of costs about, for example, what it cost taxpayers to maintain and to monitor for five years all of the replacement native vegetation that will have to be planted (and will take well more than five years to mature into anything like what exists there now!). Contractors will also have to construct something made of "eucalyptus root wad and rocks' as an "energy dissipator" to make up for what's being taken out (the pier and vegetation)in terms of flow speed and shelter. That's after they've torn out and regraded most of the riparian habitat surrounding the bridge and installed rip-rap for 130 feet on one side and 115 feet on the other side of the creek to protect their new bridge. What portion of this $3.9 million expenditure is devoted to mitigation after the destruction entailed in moving the bridge over and tearing down the old structure? Could working within the existing bridge's alignment forestall the need for some of this? The County says no to that. They say that they have looked into working in the current alignment, within the existing right-of-way, and assert that it does not offer an environmentally preferable alternative. They affirm that their planning will yield the same amount of destruction no matter which of the three alternatives is considered. Several creek advocates believe the County needs to look at more options.

What About Mercury?

In mid-July of 2009, some testing was done on some wet sediment samples taken from below the Main Street Bridge and elsewhere in the creek. Readers of The Journal have seen the mapping of the mercury in a previous article. That testing showed mercury present in the sediment, about 15-20' upstream of the bridge, at a level of 120 parts per billion which is equivalent to .12 mg/kg. On Slide 19 of the draft Watershed Management Plan, there's a chart showing most of the mercury test sites which this reporter provided to the researchers gathering information for the Watershed Plan. In the sidebar, .12 mg/kg is cited as the level for "threshold effects" in the aquatic environment. Nonetheless, the County has continually dismissed concerns about mercury as having no foundation.

Additionally, recent research has shown that mercury can be transported to the marine nearshore by groundwater, not simply by surface water passing through mercury tainted sites. Considering that groundwater is so close to the surface at the proposed construction site that a well may have to be inserted to pump out groundwater in order that the creek bed be thoroughly dry, it presents a scenario where mercury could contaminate groundwater. With mercury in the creek sediment and grading and demolition taking place, the opportunity for both surface and groundwater contamination exists when the pumping stops and the diverted creek is returned to flowing in very much disturbed channel.

Willow and Cottonwood Roots Sequester Mercury

Whether the mercury in Santa Rosa Creek at the bridge is the result of natural causes or of run-off from the abandoned mercury mine and its the roasting mill about two—three miles upstream, the truth is that the only mercury remediation going on presently is what's being done by the native riparian vegetation—most especially willows, which line and stabilize the creek's banks with their dense network of rootworks. Those roots extend to the sides and beneath the creek bed and are capable of taking in and retaining mercury without harm to themselves. Some plants, such as some eucalyptus, transport mercury through their roots to branches, then to leaves where it can volatilize, into the atmosphere where it's redeposited into the environment. Not so with willows, which steadfastly hold onto almost all of the mercury they take up with their roots.

The Department of Fish and Game submitted comments to the County which advised the County of the function that the willows serve.  Recently, Greenspace's Rick Hawley—on his own as a concerned citizen—paid to have a piece about the issue of mercury in the creek watershed published as an insert in The Cambrian in order to educate the town about the need to be more informed about the presence of mercury in the Santa Rosa Creek watershed. In the public interest, greater awareness and care about mercury—including full environmental review—is being called for from a variety of quarters.

Such a review could address some questions such as:  Is it a good idea to destroy riparian vegetation in Santa Rosa Creek when, in addition to its protected status, it has such added value in its ability to take up and to store both inorganic and organic forms of mercury?  When the top portions of the willows are destroyed by construction, what happens to any sequestered mercury as the roots die and degrade? The potential for release into sediments, surface waters, and nearby groundwater could be fully evaluated. The County has not done that and does not acknowledge the science which underlies these concerns. They have dismissed suggestions that they rightly should do something in the near term to offset the significant loss of  mercury sequestration potential by their removal of willows. The County's conceptual mitigation, for which there is no real plan as yet, refers to planting seeds and willow sprigs. It will be likely a decade or more before the functions which the current riparian vegetation provides are restored.

While Willows dominate the 5.5 acre site of ESHA which will be destroyed or disrupted by this project; mature cottonwoods, at least two Monterey Pines, alders and elderberry are also present, but unnamed in the County's environmental document which includes only this:  

Tree impacts include:
Oak -2 to be removed 6 to be impacted
Willow-17 to be removed 20 to be impacted "

When questioned about this incomplete listing, John Farhar of County Public Works, Environmental Division, responded: "The final number is required to be quantified during construction . . . "  That certainly makes it near impossible for the public to have an accurate picture of the scope and environmental impact of a project during the the regular time frame open for public comment.  It essentially, among other things, makes an appeal pretty much necessary in order to get more complete information. Accordingly, the Main Street Bridge project, in all its aspects, will be on-going, as it has been assigned Coastal Commission Appeal No. A-3-SLO-10-039.  Whether or not it will be heard when the Coastal Commission meets in San Luis Obispo in August is not known, but agenda changes can be checked at Coastal.ca.gov/mtgcurr.

Returning to the County's use of the phrase "technically feasible" about one of its questionable alternatives, it actually serves to open up the Main Street Bridge project to many creative possibilities. What about a small, separate pedestrian and bikeway bridge connected to new pedestrian and to bike lanes on Main Street? That would mean that only a slightly wider vehicular bridge would be needed and that could possibly more easily be done in the existing alignment. With new bike and pedestrian lanes coming down Main Street, one could see classes from the elementary school or junior high walking down the hill.  They'd  be able to linger while enjoying views down into the creek from the separate pedestrian bridge before they walked further for a science field trip about creek ecology on the town's acreage fronting the creek (near the dog park).  What if, instead of moving a utility pole, the County used some of the project funds to put that wiring underground and to enclose it under new bridging? That could make for an unobstructed view of the luxuriant riparian habitat which truly serves most fittingly as the entry way to a rural, coastal creek community such as Cambria continues to be. May the conversation about the possibilities continue. 

*Footnote: From the County's biological survey of Santa Rosa Creek: "Special‐status Wildlife Species Threatened or endangered under either the federal or state Endangered Species Acts, or as a species of special concern (SC) by CDFG—with the potential to occur in the watershed. Observed in the watershed (Rathbun et al. 1991, Nelson et al. 2009; D. W. Alley & Associates 2008; Morro Group 2009): southern Pacific pond turtle (Actinemysmarmoratapallida; SC) monarch butterfly (Danausplexippus; SC) tidewater goby (Eucyclogobiusnewberryi; federally endangered and SC) Monterey dusky‐footed (Santa Lucia) woodrat (Neotomamacrotisluciana; SC) steelhead –south/central California coast DPS (Oncorhynchusmykissirideus; federally threatened and SC) California red‐legged frog (Ranaaurora draytonii; federally threatened and SC) American badger (Taxideataxus; SC) two‐striped gartersnake(Thamnophishammondii; SC) "

Belted Kingfisher image on banner by Cleve Nash