Removing dams, low bridges, and barriers is essential for the survival of steelhead. And water quality in the Santa Margarita River is key not only for the health of its creatures, but humans, too. The growing city of Fallbrook, home to more than 32,000 residents, will soon be drinking from the Santa Margarita River as drought-parched Southern California towns search for more local water supplies. If steelhead are there, that means the water is healthier for humans. Getting rid of the low concrete bridge is a win for fish and people. On a brisk January morning, Larson stood a stone’s throw from the offending Sandia Creek Bridge, ready to bear witness to the fruits of her long labor. Construction workers, contractors, archaeologists, biologists, tribal representatives, and environmental activists stood in a large circle, gathered to plot the bridge’s demise. The group trekked single-file to a meadow off De Luz Road where materials would be stored during construction. Bridge builders in fluorescent-orange-and-white hard hats watched uneasily as a biologist staked out patches of rare flowering plants with short, pink flags—indicating areas that should be preserved in the middle of their new work zone. The scene was emblematic of the historic conflict between development and wildlands in California. “Everything is sensitive habitat now. It’s been that way for a long time,” says Bill Saumier, the cool-natured construction manager at Gannett Fleming and a former sport fisherman. But this project is different, Saumier says. He takes me to a high bluff and draws with his hands the outline of the new bridge that will free the Santa Margarita. So much going on with the environment is negative these days. We’re building and think we have good intentions, he says. “A lot of species are going extinct,” Saumier adds. “This time, we’re doing something good for our future.”
Steelhead were introduced on every continent except Antarctica, Capelli tells me. But they are truly native to Southern California. “They are part of the SoCal story,” he adds. But steelhead are an introverted fish—you might call them loners. Scientists don’t know much about what adult steelhead do when they return to the ocean after mating in terrestrial waters. They don’t school up and travel by the hundreds like Pacific salmon. No one is out trolling or casting off a pier, hoping for a strike from the salmon family’s sleek, elusive cousin whose skin looks touched by a rust-red watercolor brush stroke. Steelhead are a keystone species, an animal whose well-being determines the health of its ecosystem. They’re also tough. They can withstand low-oxygen environments and huge temperature swings and have even been found surviving in pools of water reaching 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Southern California steelheads’ endangered existence means the watersheds where they are born, mature, leave, and return to are also in peril from development and human-caused climate change. “A lot of very experienced fish biologists who don’t have much familiarity with Southern California are amazed the fish exists at all,” Capelli says.
67 SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE
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