Update
This project was completed in November 2020. Old Haul Road and other trails in the area remain closed due to damages from the CZU fire.
Project Background
In 1998, the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Water Board listed Pescadero Creek as being impaired by excess sediment, which adversely affects native fish habitat, including threatened coho salmon and steelhead trout. The Dark Gulch Stream Crossing Repair Project will improve habitat conditions in the Pescadero Creek Watershed by reducing sediment running off part of Old Haul Road.
Every year the Old Haul Road crossing at Dark Gulch Creek sheds an estimated 600 cubic yards of soil into the creek, which feeds into Pescadero Creek 100 yards downstream. The site is in risk of complete collapse, which would add as much as 37,000 cubic yards of soil to the Pescadero Creek network, significantly damaging the downstream channel, streamside habitat, downstream native fish and wildlife, and possibly bridges and other structures, as well. Such a collapse would also result in the loss of a critical piece of infrastructure, Old Haul Road, which is used for emergency response, fire-fighting, and recreation.
This project will remove the eroding crossing and collapsed box culvert, and build a stable crossing in its place, with drainage features that will prevent future erosion.
This project is being completed in partnership with the County and the San Mateo Resource Conservation District. It is funded in part by the County and the State Water Resources Control Board.
Learn more in the San Mateo Resource Conservation District project description attached below.