Vern-Freeman Diversion Part 2

Above is a picture of water in southern California. Look closely because it is going away... Now what you are looking at is one of the main channels leading to the dozens of acres of man made ponds that recharge the aquifer on the Oxnard plain. The water is diverted from the Santa Clara River at this specific spot because of the congruence of the river leaving a wide valley and maximum percolation utility for the aquifer. Why is recharging the aquifer so important? Because growing strawberries in a semidesert. And because agriculture is taking out more than is being put back naturally. And because strawberries do not grow on salt water. And salt water intrusion occurs in places like Oxnard when freshwater groundwater reserves are tapped so long and hard that salt water creeps in. And it takes about 40 gallons of freshwater to combat 1 gallon of saltwater. Despite all these measures, it is quite possible that the water situation in Ventura county will be handed over to the feds through a process known as adjudication. Because we could not handle our resources responsibly the adults will have to step in.

What should be immediately apparent to you is that the Saticoy settling ponds as they are affectionately known are mainly dry. These ponds should be full this time of year doing their job recharging the aquifer. But nothing.

Depressed yet? I do not want to get you on a complete downer but it gets worse. Although the pools create habitat for numerous birds and there are some fish (non native for the most part), reptiles, and amphibians that use the ponds - what you should notice is that all emergent vegetation is completely scoured away. No willows, tules, cattails - all plants that would thrive in such an environment and provide crucial habitat - are scoured away to prevent clogging of the gravity fed system of pipes, berms, and levees.

Now the word mitigation gets used a lot when discussing the complex matter of nature being steamrolled by human wants and interests. It usually goes something like this (to paraphrase) "We are going to do so much damage to the system, I mean just completely disrupt things that for a little pity party we will do this little token of appreciation over here for you (insert park, nature center etc etc)." 

Well how about this for mitigation? Let the settling ponds re-vegetate and naturalize a bit, providing habitat for wildlife. It might take a little bit of extra work keeping the culvert clear, minimizing disruption and what not. But why can't it be done? Perhaps these extra costs could themselves be mitigated by allowing fishermen and bird watchers onto the property for a nominal fee? Kayaking anybody?

My point is this: the Vern-Freeman diversion though it provides a necessary service to the agricultural economy of this region can not escape the burden of proof that it, like all man-made water diversions/dams, has imposed a huge burden on the evolutionary, geological, and ecological processes of the Santa Clara river watershed. Is United Water doing all that it can in its power to mitigate these damages?

Well as I pointed out above I do not think so, but in all fairness as my last post addressed they are doing much more than they have in the past by taking a pro-active approach to fish passage, designing a new fish ladder, getting a cool fish camera etc etc.

And finally, this being a beaver blog after all, what is the connection to beaver? You should know that the Sespe River is the primary tributary of the Santa Clara River- providing about 40% of the flow into the river. And if you are up to date on your beaver studies in socal you should also know that a primary piece of data used in the Lanman et al paper on historic range of beaver in California was a beaver collected in 1906 on the Sespe prior to statewide translocations of beaver. Beaver are native to this watershed. While some parts of the Santa Clara do become dry sandy washes unsuitable for beaver other parts such as the diversion and upriver in Santa Paula contains some flows year round. Beaver could live here. Take a look at the video below on how the channel is maintained to see the habitat here for them.

And take a look slightly upriver in the city of Santa Paula. You will notice good flow, abundant riparian vegetation, and where some diversions have created some faux beaver ponds already.

And check out the habitat on the Santa Paula Creek, a tributary nearby:

Santa Paula Creek

Now if you think like me you have already made the connection. Humans divert river water into man made ponds to allow water to slowly percolate back into and recharge over drafted aquifer. What furry, buck toothed critter do we all know that does that already? And does it for free while at the same time providing abundant habitat for other critters? Hmmmm.... United Water engaged in multiple law suits with  environmental groups, fish groups, municipalities over water rates, looming adjudication. Beaver involved in 0.0 lawsuits. Charge nothing for their water. Allow fish passage. Allow percolation.

One specific issue at the diversion was the issue of high sediment load in the water. Before going into the Saticoy ponds the water is shunted through a series of settling ponds where the sediment is allowed to drop out of the water so as not to gunk up the pipes.

One word of encouragement. According to Steve Howard, senior fisheries biologist at Freeman, they decided not to trap out the badgers who have begun colonizing the dry settling ponds. Even though their aggressive digging could destabilize earthen berms they opted to utilize the mustelids as rodent control for a booming ground squirrel population. Maybe if United Water decides to take a "let nature do the job" attitude towards badgers there is hope for beavers and United Water collaborating in the future? Perhaps as a collaborative partner in groundwater recharge?

"The arrogance of man is in thinking he is in control of nature and not the other way around."
                                                                                                                                         Godzilla 2014

Dinosaur trap at Vern-Freeman (cowbird trap-nest parasite)

Reclaimed Water for the Win?

Looks like a nice little meandering river, no? Nice riparian vegetation- loads of willows, cottonwoods, sycamores- good flow for a southern Californian stream deep into the fall before any rains have commenced. Surely such an inviting scene is miles away from the machinations of modern man. But that little road way may tip you off otherwise...

What you are looking at is a section of Conejo creek downstream from the Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant of Thousand Oaks. Of course I have mentioned this watershed before. Conejo creek has received some press recently due to the revelation that the federally protected southern steelhead has begun to recolonize these waters. The cities of Thousand Oaks and Camarillo both discharge treated wastewater into the creek. And in light of the fish's presence in the creek both municipalities may now be required to sustain these discharges in order to maintain the habitat. And this is much to the ire of at least Camarillo, because that city had begun construction of a pipeline to use their reclaimed water for agriculture (probably sod farms as I don't think reclaimed water can be used for food crops).

And this whole debate is one which we have visited upon before: In a landscape that has historically been robbed of water flow through dams and diversions, is it now our obligation to recoup some of the  losses by taking advantage of outflow from wastewater treatment plants? I know it is not a pleasant thought, concentrating wildlife restoration efforts in essentially treated sewage. But as I said before, in a water parched landscape, beggars can't be choosers. And ultimately, it is not our choice to make- wildlife is already making the choice to live in habitats made possible through reclaimed water discharge- such as the steelhead recolonizing Conejo creek or the waterfowl I photographed in some of the tanks for the treatment facility in the picture below.

And I mean, it really is a nice looking stream when you get over the "treated sewage" aspect of it...

Of course all of this talk of treated effluent begs the question: should we concentrate beaver restoration in these areas in southern California? Well I would say YES! YES!! and more YES!!!

But let me buffer my argument more with this line of reasoning. To reestablish beaver they need to get over the predator hump. MartinezBeavers talked about this issue recently here. While beaver have been extirpated from many parts of their former range, their natural predators-cougars, bobcats, coyotes, bears, wolves- have done quite nicely in the meantime. Jeff Baldwin of Sonoma State addresses this very real issue of the problem of beaver reintroduction in predator saturated lands. It becomes less to do with stream slope gradient/vegetation type and more to do with how will this beaver transplant survive in small streams before it can build dams to survive predation? There is a real potential for loss in restoration efforts especially in arid lands with small streams and abundant predators. So the real question becomes how do we maximize our chances of successfully reintroducing beaver into these lands? Well we need to look at beaver restoration as essentially a war- there will be heavy casualties beavers will absorb, no doubt about it, from people and predators.

Okinawa beachhead. 1945. wiki

But if we utilize the areas of deepest water and highest flow- often man made reservoirs, dams, and water reclamation outflows- we will stand the greatest chance of establishing beachheads. And from these beachheads beaver can then spread across the whole watershed.

N. Matijilla Creek. Los Padres Wilderness

Middle Lions Camp. Sespe Wilderness

Above are two places I would love to see beaver reintroduced. The north fork of Matijilla creek is a tributary of the Ventura river and still has steelhead while Middle Lions camp also has a stream in it with steelhead. In the case of Lions camp I have it on good record that an acquaintance of mine, Tim Peddicord a retired biology teacher, spotted a beaver there in the 1960's. Additionally numerous other anecdotal reports of beaver in the Sespe watershed suggest that this area was a final stronghold for beaver in southern California.

However the Sespe wilds might not be the ideal spot to reintroduce beaver initially, as appealing as it may seem. That name, Lions camp, is no joke- there are lots of cougars out there, and bear, and coyote, and bobcat. The flows might be low or the pools just not deep enough to establish beaver in high enough densities to get over the predator hump out in the Sespe.

But how about a place like this:

Santa Clara River Estuary

Although the lower Santa Clara river runs dry due to the Freeman Diversion the estuary forms a veritable lake due to discharge from the Ventura wastewater treatment plant. Dense beds of tules and acres of willow thickets would be ideal forage. No cougars or bears here. Establishing a viable population would be possible and from here intrepid beavers could spread up into the entire watershed or be transplanted by humans to other areas in the watershed.

We just have to get over the "icky" reaction to treated wastewater- the wildlife already has.

Conejo Creek

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Beaver Safari on the Santa Ynez River

Ok full disclosure, I have never seen a live wild beaver before. I am a beaver virgin. I know, funny I write a beaver blog? So in order to rectify this I set out last Friday to the nearest river system that I know has them, the Santa Ynez River in Santa Barbara county. Now technically speaking this area of California is considered part of central California but it harbors a climate regime and rainfall pattern not too dissimilar to the river systems in southern California proper that I and others are advocating for beaver reintroduction. So long story short, there is much to be gleaned from studies of this thriving beaver population with respect to how beavers fit into southern Californian watersheds.

Santa Ynez River. Solvang CA

Driving through the cute Danish village town of Solvang I was greeted by the majestic river as shown in the pic above. Prior to my drive out to Solvang I did a little internet sleuthing to get an idea on where on this 92 mile river I would be likely to find beaver. Now I do not want to give up my exact location, but you can find out where to go if you look hard enough (or just contact me). The beaver on the Santa Ynez River are thought to be descended from an initial restocking done in the 1940's by the Department of Fish & Game (now Fish & Wildlife). So they may in fact not represent the true "golden beaver" subspecies of beaver in California. That being said the whole idea of beaver subspecies may be a little overstated. Beaver that live at sea level in the Sacramento delta seem to do fine at 10,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada. Beaver just learn to adapt. All they need are trees and water. Which as the photo above attests this river has plenty of (for California at least, I recognize people from back east will call this a creek). And about that water, many other river systems at this time of year have much lower flows during late summer/fall. I believe the Santa Ynez allows substantial late season discharge from several of the dams along its course for fisheries purpose (ref needed). This river historically and currently has the best southern steelhead run in California.

Beautiful river, no? Good healthy riparian vegetation including willow and cottonwood trees, two beaver favorites and nice tule thickets. And, at least in the stretch I investigated, no invasive Arundo donax, the ubiquitous bamboo looking, water sucking, flammable, inedible, outcompeting the natives, scourge of southern California watersheds. All in all seems to be a promising river with good flows and nice vegetation- where are all the beavers? Well truth be told, I was not actually expecting to see a live one- but beaver sign would be still be a success in my books. And this is what anyone looking for beaver should expect- you will not see them but if you look carefully you can find their sign. And you will probably get wet, muddy, cut up a little and maybe get a tick or two. That's why I call it a safari.

A little further upriver and I came across this large pool, maybe an old abandoned dam? In the picture as you can see was someone casting a line. He and his girlfriend were a little surprised to see me tromping through and even more surprised when I told them I was looking for beaver. Even though they are local they were not aware of beaver in the river. I asked him if he was having any luck with fishing and he quickly said he was just messing around and he didn't see any fish. Perhaps aware of the heavy fine for catching federally protected steelhead he was a little wary of me. Regardless I myself did not spot any fish, steelhead or invasive bass/catfish, myself but loads of mosquito-fish. But it is too late for steelhead to be migrating and perhaps too warm in this stretch anyways. He did inform me that a little bit upriver the vegetation gets pretty thick and the river disappears into it. That was a promising lead my friends....

I pushed forward into the riparian jungle, more determined than ever to find evidence of Castor canadiensis. I made my way through a debris flow from the last storm season, disturbing a nest of rats. And then things started to change, the river was increasingly obscured by vegetation, disappearing into a tangle of willows, tule, and muck. I saw that instead of a well defined river bank like I had observed so far, the water was slowing down and backing up, creeping up out of the thicket. Suddenly a large flock of red-winged blackbirds. A great blue heron. Every couple of hundred feet I would hear the gurgling sound of moving water. Well now or never, time to dive in and see what is causing the sound...

And there it was my first beaver dam. Obviously not the massive behemoth structures you see on nature documentaries but here it was regardless. What became immediately apparent was that there was not just one of them however. It seems the beaver(s) had diverted a portion of the rivers flow into these little side channels so that they could more easily maintain the water. Each little micro-dam, all of which allowed some or much water to flow through, formed a series of little step dams. The effect of which was to slow down and spread out the water and also allowing tules, willows and other riparian vegetation to get a good toe-hold on the banks.

Ok, maybe some of you are thinking that those little "micro-dams" might just be naturally occurring little snags of dead vegetation forming at specific choke spots on the river, fair enough.... But what about this...

and this...

and this...

No doubt about it, only one critter in North America is going to do that to a tree, I was in a series of beaver ponds. And the beaver(s) had ingeniously arranged these ponds by taking advantage of the normal contours and hydrological features of the river. They did not make the classic bank to bank dam, but a series of small, porous dams. Cool.

I also routinely found floating, uprooted tules. The rhizome is edible and perhaps beavers had done this.

What should be patently obvious from these photos is that dams of this nature- very small in stature and porous- would not in the very least thwart a steelhead swimming upstream. Hell, these dams would not thwart my pet goldfish!!! But even dams in the 4-6 foot range are easily scaled by steelhead/salmonoids. It has been said before that the beaver taught the steeelhead how to jump.  What should also be obvious is that without the beaver the riparian vegetation would be far thinner. Less habitat for all the insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. Beaver do all this on the cheap and cost a lot less than expensive mechanized habitat/species restoration projects that are cumbersome due to their bureaucratic processes and the growing mistrust of all things "governmental" in this country. Its high time to repatriate the beaver with due respect to its place in American history and its future in this country.

Large, shallow rocky section before the beaver thickets on the right. I found some weird algae here

Now here is where things get all weird. As I moved out of the beaver thickets into a particularly wide, shallow, and rocky section of the river I noticed some strange submerged vegetation.

Looks almost like a tidal pool at the ocean, no? Those pinkish plants look like sea anemones almost, but they are not and I believe I have seen them before- if you know what they are let me know in the comments btw. But those brownish plants- looks a lot like kelp? But I am 15 miles from the ocean and at about 500 feet above sea level, this is fresh water. Take a closer look...

I don't know about you but that looks like a brown algae, except brown algae is almost exclusively salt/brackish water. I did a little internet sleuthing when I got home and although there are some rare filamentous types in isolated spots in California I could find no reference to a thallus forming freshwater brown algae in our fresh waters. So I contacted a person in the know when it comes to freshwater algae and lets just say the results are.... pending but may be very, very interesting. But I will be back to collect some samples for further analysis. It could be some weird type of cyanobacterial film or, tentatively, a new species. * Update it is a cyanobacteria Nostoc.

So all in all a good trip- I did not see a live beaver, but plenty of beaver-sign, and possibly discovered a new species. I can live with that.

Cheers!!!

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