Pescadero Marsh, at the confluence of Pescadero and Butano creeks, has long been known as a thriving habitat for migratory and native wildlife. That’s all changing, local residents say, and the coho salmon and steelhead trout that spawn there have been disappearing. “The frogs, the snakes and gobies—they’ll come back. But once the fish are gone, they won’t come back. They’re extinct,” one local angler, Steve Simms, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Then there are the red-legged frogs. The largest population in state live there too, and it has been declining rapidly as well.
Locals claim that the problem is human interference, particularly a series of levees and gateways that were installed in the marsh 15 years ago. Since then, they say, the state has done nothing to protect the local fauna. “We’re now 15 years in and the problem is still unsolved,” says Ronda Azevado Lucas, an attorney representing the community’s non-profit, the Coastal Alliance for Species Enhancement. They need an attorney because they plan to sue the state to force it to take action. They say the state has abdicated its responsibility, despite the California Endangered Species Act. Among the state groups they plan to sue are the California State Parks, California Department of Fish and Game and the California Natural Resources Agency.
So far, the group has obtained internal correspondence from various government agencies through the Freedom of Information Act. What they have found is a feud between the agencies over how to deal with the park. According to the correspondence, State Parks, which first installed the levees, is preventing any action being taken to restore the marsh.
“When the system is in utter collapse, you don’t study that. You take action,” says Ronda Azevado Lucas. Read more at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
