News - Local

Saturday, Apr. 19, 2008

Oil spill money is a boon to steelhead

$1.2 million from Unocal enables creek restoration projects and trout census around San Luis Obispo

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Oil spills aren’t often known for benefiting wildlife, but local conservationists and government agencies found a way to make a 1992 contamination in Avila Beach help steelhead trout in and around San Luis Obispo.

The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County recently completed its last stream restoration work funded by a $1.2 million settlement with Unocal. The money paid for about two dozen projects from Avila Beach to the headwaters of San Luis Obispo Creek, just below the Cuesta Grade.

“We’re finally finished,” said Melissa Boggs- Blalack, an environmental scientist with the state Department of Fish and Game. “We’ve spent all the money.”

As a result of the work, the San Luis Obispo Creek watershed is much more fish friendly.

Steelhead trout now have access to four more miles each of Stenner and Prefumo creeks for spawning, said Brian Stark, executive director of the Land Conservancy, which coordinated the restoration work.

“Most of the time, people hear about an oil spill and a settlement, but they don’t know where the money goes,” he said. “This is a good example of the process working.”

On Aug. 3, 1992, an above-ground Unocal pipeline ruptured above Pirates Cove and spilled 25,200 gallons of crude oil into the ocean. It oiled four miles of shoreline and killed 77 seabirds and three sea otters.

In the resulting settlement with Fish and Game, Unocal agreed to pay $950,000, which grew to $1.2 million over the years with interest payments.

State officials could not devise a restoration project that directly benefited the ocean, so they decided to indirectly help by funding upstream restoration projects, Boggs- Blalack said.

The work concentrated on removing fish migration barriers. Nearly 60 percent of the money, or $716,000, was spent on this work. These barriers are dams or very fast-moving parts of the creek that prevent fish from reaching upstream portions of the creek where they spawn.

Biologists also were curious about just how many steelhead trout live in the creek. The settlement funded $60,000 for a census that showed about 37,000 of the fish call San Luis Obispo and its environs home for at least part of their lives.