Here's the deal. Back in 1890ish, the water company built a dam in Searsville. About 25 years later, Stanford bought it. It became a popular swimming spot and the water was piped to Stanford for agriculture, landscaping, and fire control. It's now closed to the public and Stanford does a lot of research up there. Stanford does not want to take the dam down right now. They argue that the downstream area is too developed and we would risk flooding. While all true, I think there has to be something political going on here.
Stoecker Ecological intends to take down this dam. Dams are one of those things that makes me sad to be a human. We have just marched into places and basically ruined them for the animals around us. In this case, it's the Steelhead trout. They swim upstream and bang their head against this dam. Gross.
It looks pretty from here, but when you learn more about what's going on here, it starts to look evil. Steelhead migration is cut off because of this reservoir. It is filled with sediment. The dam is about 60 feet tall and the water is only 12 feet deep at this point. It's basically a sediment trap and a breeding ground for non-native species (that is, ones not part of the original ecosystem).
After we hiked the area, we heard both sides of the dam argument. The Stanford lab side (with all their charts and graphs) and the Stoecker side (with all the support of the environmental community to take down dams wherever possible). This is an incredibly sticky issue, one that Matt Stoecker has been fighting for about ten years now, and he expects that it will take ten more to get the dam down.
Matt Stoecker's map of the area before the dam. Curvy, curvy creeks...about seven of them, came into this gorge.
There is a totally different ecological system now. Bats and bullfrogs, as well as bass. Trout that do get into the lake, do not last very long, as the bass eat them up. And, if a trout does make it to the dam side of the reservoir, they are not likely to survive the fall down, as they bounce off the concrete steps of the dam.
It's such a tricky issue because of the peninsula is completely over-developed. It's also tough because the watershed affects so many towns and runs through two different counties and on Stanford property. There are a lot of stakeholders. If they just tore the dam down, the lower lying communities would get the brunt of the impact. The good thing is, there are different ways to take a dam down. Stanford clearly has the money to do pretty much anything, so they could do some studies and go with the best plan, but they haven't done anything for the last ten years. I'm going to have to figure out exactly why they don't want to invest in this project. It would bring them international attention, as one of the leaders in urban dam removal. Perhaps they aren't willing to give up the current research opportunities at the reservoir. But, that can't be the entire story, as new research opportunities would exist when the creeks came back.
Matt is totally determined. He grew up here, went to school here, fished here his whole life, and lives here now. He is totally commited to restoring the wild to what it should be. My weekend job company is doing what they can to help out. We're (not sure who exactly) are going to intern with "Beyond Searsville Dam" to try to get awareness in the community. I have never heard of this dam, so I'm guessing lots of others in the are haven't as well. I'm excited for the time when all the rich homeowners downstream (I am downstream, but not rich, nor am I a homeowner) get wind of this and start fighting based on their possessions and not the environment. That's when you see what people are made of.
Ironic thing of the day: As soon as I got in my car after the dam talk, I heard these words, "A dam collapsed in (somewhere) Brazil, killing four people." I thought: That's one way to get rid of a dam!
Random fact of the day: Bicycle Polo was a demo event in the 1908 Olympics.
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