About the Project

Mill Creek, nestled in the coastal redwoods north of Santa Cruz, provides salmon with critical cool water flows in the summer months as it joins San Vicente Creek and then meets the ocean. These favorable conditions spurred state and federal agencies to identify the San Vicente Creek watershed as a high priority for coho salmon recovery in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

The 8,500-acre San Vicente Redwoods Preserve is co-owned by Sempervirens Fund and Peninsula Open Space Trust. The 2020 CZU Lightning Complex burned the entire Preserve, melting a municipal water line owned by Cemex, Inc. that ran along the top of a defunct dam on Mill Creek and increasing concerns with the dam’s structural integrity that also impeded fish passage in the watershed. In the fall of 2021, the 12-foot-tall, 25-foot-wide concrete dam, which was built more than 100 years ago to service past mining and logging activities, was removed. Removal released gravel and sediment that was trapped behind the dam and is essential for salmon spawning habitat. Upstream of the removed dam sits a slightly larger dam, built in the mid-1900s; additional planning and assessment work is underway to determine the feasibility of removing that dam in the future.

The region surrounding the dams holds cultural significance to the descendants of the Mutsun and Awaswas speaking peoples who have lived in the region for generations. The Amah Mutsun Land Trust, a nonprofit Tribal land trust created by the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, has partnered on the project by conducting cultural resource surveys, removing invasive species, and planting native species through its Native American Stewardship Corps. In November 2021, Tribal members resurrected an annual “Welcome Back the Salmon” ceremony that they have not had the reason to hold for many years.