Seeking Answers along Creeks
Where social & environmental policies flow together
Creeping downstream, water engulfed the dry rocks of Upper Penitencia Creek like an amoeba. I wondered if it would soon signal steelhead to swim upstream through this vein of Silicon Valley. Encampments along the banks were warned to soon move. I wondered if this social policy coincided with the managed water release by design.
“The Chinook salmon are running!”
So was I. Someone had proclaimed the news within my neighborhood email group like a modern-day Paul Revere last winter. In recent years, San Francisco Bay Area folks saw salmon completing their fall spawning runs along the Guadalupe River near downtown San Jose and Los Gatos Creek near Campbell. I joined the South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition on a scavenger hunt for post-spawn salmon carcasses whose heads would inform research.
Figure 1 - I’m harvesting a head from a male Chinook salmon carcass in the Guadalupe River near downtown San Jose (photo by S. Holmes).
Haunting Ghost Fish
Before all this, I set out for a fish that was swimming under the radar in a less-known creek. I figured finding steelhead in Upper Penitencia Creek was a bad bet. Still, signs along the namesake recreational trail offered promise as I ran from East San Jose up into Alum Rock Park.
Figure 2 - Some good signs suggested that steelhead swam along the creek.
Folding my cards when no steelhead were seen, I limped back home as more rain rolled in and darkness dropped like my phone battery. At the edge of Silicon Valley, there was a sign of the “metallic” fish. Cables crossed the creek to passively detect movements by individually tagged steelhead as they swam by. The search kept haunting me so I later returned to gravel bars looking for fish nests, called redds. I have not yet found any but I have my eyes on one large gravel bar.
Figure 3 - Overlooking Silicon Valley from a ridge in Alum Rock City Park near a reservoir that provides perennial flow to that reach of Upper Penitencia Creek.
Smoke rose from the creek
The whispy cloud seemed to float from rocks that were once covered by flow last year. This winter was different along Upper Penitencia Creek and the creek now resembled a rugged hearth. Burning wood filled my nostrils as I ran upwind and upstream along the Penitencia Creek Trail. A man stood in the middle of the dry streambed below a tent on the nearby bank. Encampments seemed to sprout like the fruiting bodies of mushrooms. Single tents dotted different places while groups of shelters remained in the same spots. I wondered what forces shaped how the network of encampments changed over time. Something seemed hidden under the surface like a mycelium network. Sensing a different type of burning, I stopped to rest my aching soles as I read a posting on a tree. The City of San Jose wanted residents to relocate their encampments soon.
Was the policy proactively protecting people from forecasted floods?
In early December 2022, water rose on the low-lying banks of Upper Penitencia Creek as I saw people clear debris so that water could freely flow past their organized encampment. Soon after, the encampment stood like a ghost town in January after atmospheric rivers flooded the creek banks. More rivers rained down in March 2023. This flow funnels from Upper Penitencia Creek into Coyote Creek, so I walked my block to check the water rising on the banks. I felt both guilty for the channelized banks that reshaped stream habitat and grateful for the flood protection. These steep banks held encampments and a floating mattress tied to a tree. Loudspeakers momentarily drowned out the stormy symphony of falling rain and warned people to seek shelter away from the creek. While people living along the reach of Coyote Creek near me seemed to be fine, news reports and creek runs revealed that others evacuated their encampments.
Figure 4 - An abandoned encampment following the flooding of Upper Penitencia Creek.
Where was the water now?
Despite recent rains, the lower sections of Upper Penitencia Creek ran dry as Coyote Creek languidly flowed below, as if thirsty. Symphonic drizzle and rain silently sank between dry rocks that sat still like an audience of deaf ears. Most moisture pooled into disconnected puddles in the creek. A few miles upstream, I saw why. Flow is diverted from Upper Penitencia Creek and into a stepwise series of manmade ponds. The Dr. Robert W. Gross Recharge Ponds slowly seep creek flow into underground water basins called aquifers. Recharge is important since wells tap into aquifers as one source of residential and agricultural water.
Figure 5 - One of several Dr. Robert W. Gross Recharge Ponds in East San Jose below the foothills of the Diablo Mountains.
When would water be released downstream?
I waited for months, hopeful to resume my hunt for signs of spawning steelhead. They needed sufficient flow to go from the Bay, through Coyote Slough and Creek, and up Upper Penitencia Creek. Water flowed for a little while below the recharge ponds before I ran back into the dry streambed. A man walked on the rocks with two plastic bags so I stopped to see what he was after. Just downstream of him, water spilled from an outflow pipe into the creek in a loud rush that I had not heard before.
Figure 6 - Upper Penitencia Creek as a managed water release slowly flows down the streambed after months of dryness. See the stump for reference between pictures as water rises from barely noticeable to a flowing front.
Water runs on
As do I. This time I searched for where the water crept forward. I imagined it calling life up from hiding places beneath the streambed. Would aquatic insects and amphibians emerge from the ground, birds return to waddle and wade in the water, and an algal film later coat the rocks? This could set the stage for returning steelhead that would beat their tails into the streambed as they dug redds in ancient rocks. Once part of the seafloor, these rocks show what appear to be fossilized seashells. Creeks formed around Silicon Valley after sea-level dropped and then steelhead swam upstream anywhere from 4 to 6 million years ago. That was then. Now, steelhead must wait to return and life will remain hidden beneath the creek. It ran dry shortly after the managed water release so more is needed.
Figure 7 - A streambed rock seems to hold fossilized seashells.
Rock-bottom line
I will keep running along the creek like a spawning steelhead to see when the water returns. Some life along the stream comes and goes, leaving signs behind like small encampments, while other organisms weather the seasons.
Thanks for reading my Substack! The “Sayonara Sebastes” series will continue as more news unfolds. Stay tuned for that and broader stories about nature from a “fisheye” lens.