San Vicente Creek (Santa Cruz County)
San Vicente Creek Arroyo de San Vicente[1] | |
---|---|
Location | |
Country | United States |
State | California |
Region | Santa Cruz County |
Municipality | Davenport, California |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | Ben Lomond Mountain in the Santa Cruz Mountains |
• coordinates | 37°06′35″N 122°08′46″W / 37.10972°N 122.14611°W[2] |
• elevation | 2,520 ft (770 m) |
Mouth | Pacific Ocean |
• location | Davenport, California |
• coordinates | 37°00′34″N 122°11′39″W / 37.00944°N 122.19417°W[2] |
• elevation | 13 ft (4.0 m)[2] |
Basin features | |
Tributaries | |
• left | Mill Creek |
San Vicente Creek (Spanish for "St. Vincent") is a 9.3-mile-long (15.0 km)[3] northern California coastal stream which flows entirely within Santa Cruz County.[2] It flows from the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
History
Originally, there was a
Prior to this San Vicente had been the premiere trout fishing stream in the county, so the fill caused some outrage in the local papers. A 1906 editorial in the Santa Cruz Surf at the time said: "The San Vicente Creek, beloved of the angler and the artist, has its mouth stopped by a vast dyke, and its throat choked into a tunnel, a saloon on its border, and its bed for miles denuded of the granite cobbles and sand beds. A sawmill is swiftly cutting out the timber and dirt and debris defile the pools and clog the riffles where lurked the gamey trout."[5]
Watershed and Course
The San Vicente Creek watershed drains 4,500 acres (18 km2).[6] Its waters rise at 2,520 feet (770 m) elevation just north of and below the peak of Ben Lomond Mountain in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The creek descends the west-facing slopes of the mountains, picking up one major tributary, Mill Creek. The creek's mouth is at the unincorporated community of Davenport (which had originally been named after the creek).
Ecology
San Vicente Creek is near the southern boundary of the
San Vicente Creek watershed is regionally unique due to the amount of karst underlying the upper watershed. This geological formation fosters significant water infiltration and subsurface movement, resulting in multiple freshwater springs that provide unusually cool summer water temperatures and high summer baseflows ideal for survival of young oversummering salmonids.[10]
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0-940283-00-8.
- ^ a b c d "San Vicente Creek". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map, accessed March 15, 2011
- ^ "Coast Dairies Property: A Land Use History". Santa Cruz County History | Santa Cruz Public Libraries. Archived from the original on 2010-06-26. Retrieved 2009-09-09.
- ^ Taylor, Arthur (2 February 1906). "San Vicente Creek". The Daily Surf. Santa Cruz.
- ISBN 978-1-4614-7995-6. Retrieved June 11, 2021.
- ^ Kurtis Alexander (April 28, 2021). "When old dam in Santa Cruz Mountains comes down, coho salmon will be free to swim home again". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved June 11, 2021.
- ^ Gomez, Phil (2021-09-25). "Dam demolition in Santa Cruz Mountains benefits endangered salmon". KSBW. Retrieved 2021-09-25.
- ^ Amanda Bartlett (October 10, 2022). "Endangered species found in Central Calif. creek for first time after dam removal". SFGATE. Retrieved October 10, 2022.
- ^ Sooni Gillett, Carmen Tan, John Morley, Jessica Missaghian, Graham Wesolowski, ,Jim Robins, Mike Podlech, and Kelli Camara (Feb 1, 2014). San Vicente Creek Watershed Plan for Salmonid Recovery (PDF) (Report). Santa Cruz County Resource Conservation District. Retrieved June 11, 2021.
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External links