Freeman Dam Fish Ladder Spawns Debate Over Water Use

With the push of a button inside the control room at the Freeman Diversion Dam near Saticoy, thousands of gallons of Santa Clara River water gushes through the dam’s fish ladder.

In the eight years since it was built at a cost of $2 million to help save the endangered southern steelhead trout, six adult fish are known to have passed through the concrete and steel contraption.

That is $333,000 per fish, not counting the value of the water that could have gone to houses and farms on the Oxnard Plain, instead of washing out to sea.

“I would like to see some results for the loss of the water,” said Dana Wisehart, who works for the United Water Conservation District, which operates the dam.

“I would like to see more fish. The water we put through here could be put to other uses. We spent all this money, let’s get some results, doggone it.”

Fish ladders like the one at Freeman Diversion Dam--the only ladder operating in Southern California--have been considered important tools to help fish reach spawning grounds blocked by impassable dams.

Just last month, the Casitas Municipal Water District agreed to build one at a cost of $2.3 million at the Robles Diversion Dam on the Ventura River near Ojai, also to benefit the steelhead. But the high cost and marginal benefit of the Freeman ladder serve as an object lesson in how difficult it will be to bring steelhead back to Southern California streams. The problems at Freeman are stoking a debate over who should get the water, people or fish.

“We are somewhat concerned about the ladder. It’s not operating as efficiently as it could be. It needs fine tuning,” said Eric Shott, a biologist at the National Marine Fisheries Service. That agency is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the United water district to find ways to get more steelhead past the 25-foot-high dam to their spawning grounds in the Upper Ojai.

As poorly as the Freeman ladder has performed, it has at least proven one thing: Steelhead still live in Southern California rivers.

Dam operators have annually counted about 400 smolt passing through a fish screen at the Freeman dam on their return trip to the ocean.

Many more juveniles are believed to wash over the top of the dam during storms.

This is good news to conservationists, because the very existence of the fish was hotly debated when the fish ladder was proposed for the dam a decade ago.

Since then, small numbers of steelhead have been seen by biologists in the Ventura River, Sespe Creek, Malibu Creek, the Santa Ynez River and Topanga Creek, Shott said.

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They are all that is left of the thousands of fish that early this century migrated each winter from the ocean to spawning tributaries in local mountains.

The species was declared endangered in 1997, their numbers depleted by water diversions, dams, pollution and overfishing.

Steelhead are ocean-going rainbow trout that grow up to 2 feet in length and are prized by sports fishermen. Like salmon, they are relentless in their determination to migrate and spawn, swimming headlong into raging currents and astounding scientists with their navigation skills.

But officials are disappointed that so few fish have been seen using the Freeman dam fish ladder. Getting more steelhead past the dam is vital because the Santa Clara River is the path to tributaries such as Sespe Creek, considered the best remaining steelhead habitat in Southern California.

One possible reason more adult fish haven’t been observed is that some fish may be getting through the ladder without being seen. The ladder is a terraced staircase of switchbacks made of concrete and steel.

Once inside, fish ascend the dam step by step, leaping from one level to the next.

But water coursing through the fish ladder is so turbulent it could easily conceal a big fish.

“We may have a few more fish using the ladder than have been observed,” Shott said.

But not necessarily. Since each adult female lays hundreds of eggs, even a few fish could account for the hundreds that come back down the river to the sea.

Another possible reason few fish show up in the ladder is because it is only operating a few months in the year, during the wet season.

It runs in March, believed to be the peak of the steelhead migration, and it runs for up to 48 hours after storms.

Any more use than that releases too much water, Wisehart explained.

About 5,000 acre-feet of water was released to enable the six steelhead known to have traversed the ladder to get over the dam. That is enough water to supply a city of 20,000 people for a year.

“It’s going to be interesting if we begin using [more] water for steelhead,” Wisehart said. “The people need to decide if we want an improved environment or to sustain what we have.”

One reason fish may not be using the ladder is that they are having trouble finding it, said Jim Edmondson, conservation director for California Trout Inc.

The portal is a 4-foot square hole in a concrete wall on the extreme south end of the dam. Steelhead, following the currents, may reach the pool at the base of the dam and get confused, he said.

Edmondson proposed using divers to see if steelhead get stuck in the pool at the base of the dam during storms.

Beyond these theories, searching for fish is a tenuous proposition under the best of circumstances, as any fisherman knows.

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Finding an endangered fish in a big waterway is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

For those reasons, Shott, at the Marine Fisheries Service, says his agency is committed not only to the Freeman fish ladder but also to the new one at Robles dam. But the design may be different.

“We’re going to take a very close look at the design and construction of the ladder at Robles dam,” Shott said. He said the Ventura River flows in a narrower channel, which should make it easier to funnel steelhead into a fish ladder.

Environmentalists say it’s too early to lose faith in restoration efforts such as the Freeman fish ladder. It will take time for the steelhead to rebuild their numbers. High expectations at the beginning of the recovery process are unrealistic, said Mark Capelli, executive director of Friends of the Ventura River.

“It’s taken 50 to 60 years to put steelhead into the condition they are in, and it’s going to take a little while to restore them,” Capelli said.