The final hurdle has been cleared for a project that will make it easier for endangered coho salmon and threatened steelhead trout to travel up San Geronimo Creek.
Marin supervisors voted unanimously this week to reject an April appeal filed by Philip Snell of San Anselmo objecting to a creek permit granted by the county Department of Public Works.
“This is the last permit needed for this restoration project to begin,” Preston Brown, conservation director for the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, told supervisors Tuesday.
SPAWN has been working since 2012 to get the necessary approvals and has secured a $2.1 million grant from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to cover the bulk of the costs.
The project will remove what has become known as Roy’s Pools fish ladder and expand the riparian corridor upstream. Enhancements to improve salmon habitat will include large wooden debris structures, backwaters and side channels. The project entails the removal of 51 protected trees and seven heritage trees. The revegetation plan includes nine different native tree species.
The fish ladder was built as part of a federal project in 1999 that removed the damaged Roy’s Dam. Todd Steiner, SPAWN’s executive director, called for removal of the dam after he determined that it was preventing coho from migrating further upstream.
“Basically SPAWN grew out of that project,” Steiner said. “That was our genesis.”
Steiner said the pools, which were designed by the National Marine Fisheries Service, were supposed to hold water year round but they never did and juvenile fish got stranded in them. As the pools lost more and more water, the water temperature would rise, oxygen levels fell and algae began to grow.
“None of those things are good for fish,” Steiner said.
In recent years, SPAWN volunteers have used nets to rescue some of the baby fish from the pools.
Snell told supervisors on Tuesday, “The issuance of this permit is illegal because the San Geronimo Valley Community Plan establishes golf as the primary use of this land.
“Even if the Pope were to endorse this project, it is this board’s ministerial duty to follow the law and revoke the permit finding it void,” Snell said. “The Trust for Public Land, the owner, has destroyed the primary use. The golf course is simply unplayable; it doesn’t exist anymore.”
Supervisor Dennis Rodoni, whose district includes San Geronimo Valley, said, “This is a bit of a Groundhog Day for me. I do think the issues that have been brought forward have been addressed at both the ballot box and in our courts previously.”
TPL bought the golf course property at the urging of the county to keep it from being purchased by a private entity. The county, which sought to acquire the property for public recreational use and for repair and preservation of wildlife and fish habitats at the site, contracted to purchase the golf course from TPL by December 2019.
The county’s purchase was blocked by a lawsuit filed by San Geronimo Advocates, a group of residents seeking to preserve the golf course. As part of its legal filing, San Geronimo Advocates asserted that the San Geronimo Valley Community Plan requires that the property remain a golf course, but Marin Superior Court Judge Paul Haakenson rejected that argument. The advocates then gathered 12,000 signatures to put a measure on the March 3 ballot.
The measure would have amended the San Geronimo Valley Community Plan “to require voter approval for any change in the primary golf course use.” It received the support of about 39% of voters but required majority support to pass.
Some people with property downstream from the project have expressed concern about the risk of increased flooding.
Brown, however, told supervisors Tuesday, “This project will improve conditions for downstream landowners by spreading and slowing flood waters allowing water to sink into the ground.”
Berenice Davidson, a public works principal civil engineer, said SPAWN hired Environmental Science Associates to conduct a hydraulic study of the effect the project would have given a storm of the magnitude that occurs once every 100 years. Davidson said the model generated showed no increase in flooding.
Erica Williams, TPL’s California project manager, said the trust completed the bulk of its community outreach to help determine what it should do with the former 157-acre golf course property before the COVID-19 stay-at-home order went into effect. Williams said TPL is now analyzing that feedback and preparing a vision document to be released to the public in July 2020.
Williams said despite the state’s dire economic situation due to the pandemic, there is still state grant money available for conservation projects.
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