These days large swaths of the once-meandering Topanga Creek are dry and full of dirt and look like a Santa Monica Mountains hiking trail. The cause is a 1,000-foot-long berm that rises up to 30 feet high and disrupts the water's 10-mile path to the ocean.
Beginning in the 1960s, residents fearful that heavy rains would swell the creek and flood their homes gradually began to pile on material to interrupt the water flow.
"If they had a contractor buddy who needed to get rid of cement, they'd say, 'Bring it on here!' " said Suzanne Goode, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Parks and Recreation.
The creek, along Rodeo Grounds Road, is diverted off to a narrow path that causes it to slow down and dump its sediment. Water then trickles underground during the dry season.
On Monday, however, the parks department will begin a two-month project to remove 19,000 cubic yards -- weighing 26,000 tons -- of soil, asphalt, concrete and possibly car parts that form the berm so water can run year-round once again.
Dry weeds dot the sides of the berm. Below it lies the dusty creek bed and a rickety bridge that former residents once used to cross the creek.
Officials hope the restoration will give the federally endangered Southern California steelhead trout, a silvery gray-speckled fish 2 to 3 feet long, a chance to make a comeback.
About 60 years ago, roughly 1,500 steelhead trout traveled from the sea up the creek to spawn in the winter. Now, only about 10 swim Topanga Creek each year, and "those that show up are faced with barriers and bad habitat," said Nica Knite, a Southern California manager with California Trout, a conservation group.
"Quite often they cannot get back downstream, and they'll be trapped in pools that start to dry out," Goode said.
A 2006 study by California Trout assessed the Santa Monica Mountains' 23 watersheds and found that the restoration of Topanga Creek was one of three such projects needed to bring back a vigorous steelhead population, Knite said.
About 50,000 steelhead trout swam in waterways from the Santa Maria River to Baja California's Domingo Creek as recently as the 1950s. Today, fewer than 500 swim in that area, she said.
These Southern California steelhead hold a special place in the evolutionary chain, with DNA that makes them descendants of the original species that appeared after the Ice Age melt, Knite said.
