Los Padres gravel project gives drought-stressed steelhead more places to spawn.

Carmel River steelhead are picky about their rocks. They can’t be too big or too small. So Monterey Peninsula Water Management District is trying to get them just right.

MPWMD is in the process of stockpiling 1,500 tons of Central Valley quarried rock for its latest steelhead spawning gravel enhancement project. Once it’s all been delivered, likely next week, district staff will dump the rock in three locations within a quarter-mile of Los Padres Dam, with the goal of improving spawning habitat between the Los Padres and San Clemente dams.

The river’s natural gravel gets stuck behind the two dams rather than rolling downstream, so it’s up to resource managers to give threatened steelhead the right-sized substrate for spawning. Beverly Chaney, the district’s associate fisheries biologist, hopes to increase the available steelhead spawning habitat by at least 50 percent.

The project began 20 years ago, when district staff placed trucked-in river rock at 27 sites. In 2003 they added another 600 tons. This year’s enhancement, Chaney says, is the biggest yet in terms of cost and material.

It’s funded by a California Department of Fish & Wildlife grant, including $133,000 to buy and transport the gravel and $35,000 to place it in the river.

For now, the gravel is piling up on an open field by the Los Padres Dam. Once it has all been delivered, crews will begin loading it onto a truck with a conveyor belt to spew it into three areas: the dam’s plunge pool and along two edges of the river channel.

Chaney expects all the rock to be placed by mid-October, in time for winter rains to start moving it downstream – assuming there are winter rains. This a sensitive time for the river, which is experiencing record low flows as the California drought worsens.

“We’re going to be very careful not to harm anything out there,” Chaney says. “We’ve got our fingers crossed for rain.”