Dozens of projects going on in the Carmel River Watershed

In 1999 the Carmel River was listed as one of North America’s most endangered rivers, prompting a group of Federal, State, and local agencies to band together.

“We all knew that we needed to do a lot of work to restore it. It’s also the source of virtually all the water that’s used in the Monterey Peninsula,” said Carmel River Watershed Conservancy Executive Director Lorin Letendre.

The Carmel River is a large watershed. It drains about 254 square miles before form the Santa Lucia range all the way to the western slopes of the Sierra De Salinas, before entering the ocean at Carmel Bay.

“We are coordinating about 50 projects in the Carmel River Watershed right now,” said Letendre.

One of those is at the Los Padres Dam,where they’re building a way for steelhead to travel downstream easier.

“It attracts the fish into a cage, and the fish can only go one direction which is down this tube which is about three feet in diameter and filled with water,” said Letendre.

This new technique will hopefully help restore the species back to when 12,000 steelhead thrived in the Carmel River.

“They think the number is down to about a thousand adults,” said Letendre.

From the banks to wildlife, the river is in recovery.

“If you work your way down the river each section of the river has different projects going on,” said Letendre.

Other future projects include the removal of the old china dam, restoring the California red legged frogs, and opening up levies in Carmel.