Friends received two contracts in 2005 and a third in 2008 from the San Francisco Bay Salmonid Habitat Restoration Fund to improve fish habitat in Corte Madera Creek and its tributaries in the Ross Valley. One award to Friends was used to assess barriers to steelhead passage in our watershed and to develop designs to address three different problems that steelhead encounter when they are migrating and when they seek out deep, cool pools necessary for their survival during the summer and early fall. These problems are: inadequate resting pools in the concrete channel in Kentfield and Ross; a poorly designed fish ladder and unstable streambanks immediately upstream of the concrete channel; and other barriers caused by culverts and low dams that keep fish from moving easily between spawning and summer rearing habitat.

The second contract funded some of the design and permitting necessary to replace two old fish ladders and install a new one on San Anselmo Creek: at Saunders Avenue in San Anselmo and at Pastori Avenue in Fairfax (with old fish ladders), and at Lansdale Station. Although some steelhead can get through the fish ladders, neither one meets the current standards for fish passage used by NOAA Fisheries and California Department of Fish and Game.

The third contract provided funds to complete the design and permitting of the Lansdale fish passage project.

For all projects, Friends assembled a team of experts, including Stetson Engineers Inc., Michael Love Associates, Ross Taylor and Associates, and Garcia and Associates, Inc. As of late 2010, the designs for the Lansdale Station project had been completed and the permit issued. On behalf of the Town of San Anselmo, we applied to California Department of Fish and Game’s Fisheries Restoration Grant Program for construction funding and were selected. The contract is being prepared, with the expectation that it will be executed by mid-June 2011 and construction will take place in summer 2012. Designs for the Saunders project had been developed and show flood-control benefits, but this project requires relocating a sewer through private property, the owner of which is not in favor of the project. For Pastori Avenue, two alternative conceptual designs were developed, but the owner of the bridge has not been willing for any work to be done on his property.

The funding for design and permitting originated with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, in collaboration with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries), the California Department of Fish and Game, and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). The funds were provided by Caltrans as required mitigation for possible impacts on steelhead and salmon from pile driving and other activities undertaken as part of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge East Span Seismic Safety Project.