A great new spawning creek for steelhead appears to be opening up.
An excerpt.
ALAMEDA CREEK
2 dams come down so steelhead can go up
Chuck Squatriglia, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, September 22, 2006
The campaign to restore Alameda Creek and its steelhead trout is benefiting from the razing of two dams, a project the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission on Thursday called the biggest dam removal in Bay Area history.
As the last pieces of Sunol and Niles dams were coming down Thursday, the PUC promised cash for the restoration effort and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced it would modify a pipeline impeding the creek.
Environmentalists said they are well on the way toward seeing Alameda Creek run largely unimpeded by 2011.
"This is a historic day," Jeff Miller, director of Alameda Creek Alliance, said as a backhoe scooped chunks of the dam. "Having worked on this for nine years, it is staggering to see the creek without Sunol Dam."
There is still much to be done before steelhead spawn in the far reaches of Alameda Creek, including finding some way for the fish to pass a weir in Fremont. But Miller said the dams' removal will give the restoration campaign added momentum.
The PUC and 16 other organizations -- including the Alameda County Flood Control and Water Conservation District and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service -- agreed Thursday to work together toward the creek's restoration and finance an analysis of what must be done.
"We are putting it in writing," Susan Leal, PUC executive director, said before signing the pledge. "We will spend $240,000 to do the studies to see what it will take to bring that habitat back."
Alameda Creek and its tributaries cover 670 square miles, making it the region's third-largest watershed. Environmentalists have long argued that it is big enough and wet enough to support steelhead while ensuring adequate water supply and flood protection for a growing urban area.
The PUC, which manages the Hetch Hetchy water system that serves 2.4 million customers, plays a key role in the effort because Alameda Creek is fed by the agency's Calaveras Reservoir.
It's been at least 40 years since any significant number of steelhead made their annual migration from the ocean through San Francisco Bay and up Alameda Creek to spawn. As the region grew, one barrier after another appeared on the creek.
Niles Dam was built in the 1880s. Sunol Dam went up about 20 years later. Both later became part of the PUC.
The two dams, each about 110 feet wide and 8 to 10 feet tall, became obsolete when the Hetch Hetchy system was completed in the 1930s. They remained standing simply because no one ever thought to knock them down.
