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NFC: Readers Digest article....
Miracle at Adobe Creek
Littered and dying, the trout stream was a casualty of modern life. Then
a teacher and his students decided to change things.
By Malcolm McConnell
As a teenager in Petaluma, Calif., Tom Furrer used to wander a brushy,
meandering stream called Adobe Creek through the farms and into the
foothills of Sonoma Mountain. But farms had given way to suburban homes,
and now, on a hot September morning, the 26-year-old hiked along a
denuded creek bed. The creek was almost dry, littered by the hulks of
refrigerators, washing machines and box springs.
Furrer had hoped that his high school science class would enjoy a field
trip to observe the delicate web of life in a healthy stream. Not much
chance of that, he realized, watching mosquitoes fly above oily water
trapped in an abandoned tire.
Rounding a bend, Furrer was surprised. In a cool bower shaded by willows,
Charlie Malnati, a retired feed-mill worker, stood knee-deep in an
isolated pool, a bucket in one hand, a dip net in the other.
"How’d these trees survive?" Furrer asked.
"I planted them years back to prevent erosion," Malnati said. "The shade
keeps the fish holes cool."
"Fish?" Furrer asked.
"They’re baby steelheads," Malnati replied, explaining that the silvery
fingerlings were survivors of that spring’s meager steelhead trout hatch.
Their seagoing parents had followed their ancient instinct under the
Golden Gate Bridge, across San Pablo Bay, then up the Petaluma River to
spawn when Adobe Creek was at its highest during the winter rains.
Stranded in these shrinking pools, the little fish would die before the
next rains unless Malnati rescued them. For years the diversion dam
upstream had reduced the creek to a muddy trickle in the dry summer
months.
Studying the shade-dappled water as the fish darted between Malnati’s
boots, the germ of an idea formed in Furrer’s mind: if one man could
restore this small stretch of the creek, what about its entire six-mile
length?
It was an improbable notion. Furrer had just begun teaching at Petaluma’s
Casa Grande High School. The teenagers in this suburb north of San
Francisco knew about shopping malls, but few had seen a wild stream. And
yet that chance encounter in 1981 would start Furrer’s students on a
remarkable crusade.
Hard Questions
A passionate outdoorsman, Furrer had worked as a park ranger in Northern
California. He relished introducing kids to the magic of the natural
world, which was why he’d chosen to teach high school wildlife and
forestry. Furrer hiked Adobe Creek often that year and into the next,
learning the science of coastal waterways. Finally he felt ready, and
called a group of students together in the spring of 1983.
Adobe Creek, he told them, was not yet dead. One man, Charlie Malnati,
had preserved the fragile life cycle of the steelheads. "If he can do
it," challenged Furrer, "why can’t you?"
Anna Kastner, a Casa Grande senior, was eager. "What do you want us to
do?" she asked.
"It’s not what I want," Furrer responded. "Steelheads are one heartbeat
away from extinction. Their future belongs to your generation, not mine.
You’ll be leading this battle."
Kastner came from a family of eight whose widowed mother struggled to
keep the home intact. Knowing little of the outdoors, Anna would become
one of the most enthusiastic workers.
Walking the creek a few days later, Furrer showed several volunteers the
rusting junk. "You’ll have to find some way to haul this to the dump," he
noted. Several boys offered their pickup trucks.
Then Furrer pointed to the banks. Once, thousands of oaks, buckeyes and
willows had shaded the shallows where fingerlings lived in the summer.
Tree roots prevented erosion and silting, keeping spawning pools well
oxygenated.
As Furrer explained, his students gazed woefully at the naked banks. How
can we plant thousands of trees? they asked. Will there ever be enough
water for the steelheads to survive?
"Excellent questions," Furrer replied. "How are you going to find the
answers?"
New Roots
By fall 20 volunteers were calling themselves the United Anglers of Casa
Grande High School. Soon they were knee-deep in mud, hauling out trash.
Furrer was faculty adviser, but students ran the show.
Sophomore Julie Lambert’s principal interest used to be cheerleading. The
United Anglers awakened an interest in biology, and now she stood in hip
boots, removing glass from the few remaining spawning holes.
Furrer led students up the slopes of Sonoma Mountain, where they snipped
thousands of willow cuttings. Six weeks later the kids spread out across
the banks to plant them. As they bent in the hot sun, poking trowels into
crusted mud, one student said soberly, "It’s going to take years."
Another moaned, "Decades."
"Somebody’s got to start," Jason Simmons said, reaching for another
cutting.
Showdown
The students planted 1200 willows and Douglas firs during the first year.
They kept to that pace the next year, and the year after that.
As word of the restoration spread, club members were joined by fellow
students and their parents for weekend trash-hauling or planting
marathons. As the years passed, the club began to acquire an alumni
group.
Anna Kastner worked her way up through the state’s resources system, but
still dropped by to help. Jim Kirk and Darcy Hamlow pitched in during
time off from their jobs. Scott Whitcomb waded through the mud while on
leave from the Army.
The students researched municipal records, discovering that Petaluma had
been damming up Adobe Creek for decades but now used less than five
percent of the water in Lawler Reservoir. Since most of Petaluma’s needs
came from wells and other sources, the club tried to persuade officials
to open the dam and keep water flowing all year.
The showdown came in May 1987 when club members, led by Julie Lambert,
met with engineers in City Hall. City officials wouldn’t budge, saying
the diversion was needed to keep an old water-treatment plant running in
the summer. Furthermore, Lawler Reservoir was "our emergency water
reserve."
"We just want to give these fish a chance to survive," Julie said.
"Young lady," the official said, "I’m talking about water we’d need in a
nuclear attack."
"If they drop the H-bomb," Julie replied, "none of us will need water."
Furrer told the students not to give up. "Believe in your dream," he
said.
Bold Plan
The club bounced back with a new idea: they would build a small hatchery
in a campus greenhouse, a Noah’s Ark to preserve the species until the
problem of the permanent water supply could be solved. They would release
steelhead fingerlings in the partially restored lower creek, and if the
steelies returned in three years to spawn, the students would know their
efforts were paying off.
Furrer was elated by their response, but he wanted them to understand its
implications. "You’ll be gone by then," he told Julie.
She shrugged. "Other kids will come behind us."
To raise funds, students held car washes, spaghetti feeds and candy
sales. Within months they collected $6000 and finished the hatchery.
Then Furrer got bad news from a school official: "The hatchery doesn’t
meet the earthquake code." It had to be abandoned.
Now even Furrer’s spirits fell. "Let’s just go back to cleaning the
creek," he said, discouraged.
But Jason Simmons went to the blackboard and sketched a bold new plan: a
bigger hatchery to provide thousands of fingerlings for all the
threatened streams in the area.
Furrer was skeptical. Who would run such a complex facility? "We will,"
the students said.
And, Furrer wondered, who would teach them how? The answer was plain. The
next summer Furrer volunteered at an Alaskan hatchery to learn the skills
he’d need.
Changing the World
Over the next two years the students raised money for their new hatchery.
The California Department of Fish and Game offered $50,000, but only if
the students scaled back their ambitious facility. The kids refused,
counteroffering to also raise chinook salmon, a coastal species whose
numbers were dwindling. The department agreed to nearly double its
contribution. Local ranchers Peter and Conni Pfendler donated a
substantial sum. For years they had watched the students toiling in the
creek. "These kids should be rewarded," they said.
Supporters also gave noncash contributions. A lumber company donated
building materials. Electricians union officer Al Ferris designed a
network to control pumps, aerators and refrigeration units.
Still, the city refused to open the dam. Then one day two students laid
out a geological map on the floor of Furrer’s classroom and pointed to an
earthquake fault line beneath Lawler Reservoir. "Let’s see if people in
City Hall know that," Furrer said.
In fact, the city had been wrestling with this for months: state
authorities required that Lawler Reservoir either be reinforced or
abandoned. So the city council voted to abandon the Adobe Creek water
system. In October 1992 Adobe Creek was restored as a free-running stream
for the first time in eight decades. Soon the students observed what
seemed to be a miracle—hundreds of steelhead fingerlings began appearing
all on their own in the ancient spawning pools.
The hatchery was dedicated on April 25, 1993, as students unfurled their
banner: "Together we will change the world." Within a year the student
hatchery, no longer needed for the steelhead trout, was producing
thousands of chinook salmon.
On a sunny day last winter, Tom Furrer sat on a boulder overlooking Adobe
Creek. For years he’d spent personal funds and sacrificed his social life
for Adobe Creek. More than once, he has been asked if it was worth it.
To answer, Furrer spoke of the young faces crushed by disappointment or
shining with the joy of some small victory. Today, he said, Anna Kastner
is assistant director of the Feather River Fish Hatchery; Julie Lambert
is studying for an advanced biology degree; Jason Simmons married fellow
United Anglers alumna Nancy Fowler and settled in town. The United
Anglers, Furrer added, now teach students from other Petaluma schools to
restore nearby streams.
Then Furrer pointed to three pairs of spawning steelheads. Using their
tails to scoop out nests in the gravel, the females dropped pale yellow
eggs. "Steelhead have repeated this life cycle for centuries," he said.
"I want our children to see them do so in the future."
Robert Rice
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