The waters of Carmel River’s coastal barrier lagoon are again muddied with controversy over how a catastrophic New Year’s Eve breach occured.

Some say the County’s management plan failed when a controlled breach at the southern end of the sandbar migrated off a granite bedrock perch and into deeper sand. Later, a picnicking family breached the sandbar with their hands and shovels.

But others argue that the picnickers are responsible for the initial breach, which drained the lagoon.

Regardless of how it happened, experts agree that the “catastrophic breach” significantly harmed the local steelhead population.

Management of the barrier lagoon that forms where Carmel River meets the sea has been a thorny issue since the Odello family arrived from Italy in 1924 and began farming artichokes in the wetlands surrounding the river mouth.

Every year wave action builds a sandbar across the river mouth, producing the lagoon, which is vital to the steelhead’s development from juveniles to adult, ocean-going fish.

“Lagoons function like feedlots for the steelhead before their big journey into the sea,” says Frank Emerson of the Carmel River Steelhead Association. “They’re full of excellent, lipid-rich foraging foods for the fish.”

Every year, winter rains swell the river, which fills the lagoon to capacity. The rise in water levels naturally breaches the sandbar for a period of time before it eventually reforms. Without human interference, the process generally allows the juvenile steelhead a choice when they want to head out into the ocean. Studies have shown that steelhead need to spend at least four to six months in the lagoon and literally double in size before then.

Yet beginning with the Odello family in the 1920s, local property owners have breached the lagoon by hand in order to avoid flooding, which occurs when the lagoon reaches 11.5 feet. For more than 30 years, the Monterey County Department of Public Works has monitored the ware level, and when flooding appears imminent, has used bulldozers to mechanically breach the lagoon.

But if the sandbar is incised at the wrong point it results in a “catastrophic breach” which drains most of the water from the lagoon and sweeps the juvenile salmon out into the ocean before they are ready. Once swept out, many juvenile fish die because their kidneys have not developed the capacity to process salt water. The ones that do survive usually have not grown to their maximum size and die earlier than their mature counterparts.

Last year, a “worst case scenario” occurred when the County breached the sandbar to the north. In conjunction with heavier than usual rainfall and wave action, this northern breach resulted in severe erosion of both the beach and the supporting sand for Scenic Road. Then a late season breach migrated back towards the middle of the sandbar in early May, a critical time for the young steelhead. The lagoon drained rapidly, resulting in what some have estimated as “hundreds” of steelhead deaths.

“For years, the lagoon has been managed on an emergency-only basis,” Emerson says. “Yet every year there’s an emergency—when the property owners begin worrying about flooding. We need a long-term management plan.”

So, last summer, an advisory committee consisting of biologists, and representatives from local, state and federal agencies convened to develop that plan.

San Jose State Associate Professor Jerry Smith, who has studied steelhead and coastal barrier lagoons in Central California for decades, served on the committee and helped devise a method of breaching that minimizes impact on both the steelhead and private and public property.

The committee developed a plan to breach the sandbar above a subterranean granite “sill” at the south end of the sandbar. In theory, the granite bedrock would prevent the incision from migrating north to the middle of the steelheads’ sandbar and draining too much water. A well-maintained southern breach would allow the County to drain a portion of the lagoon—avoiding flooding and erosion while preserving the habitat.

In late December, the plan was implemented and a controversy was spawned.

Smith says the southern breach was a success.

“It did not completely drain so there was no adverse [effect] on fish,” he says. “I looked at the initial configuration and it stayed to the south.”

Yet what happened next is unclear. According to Smith, wave action naturally reformed the sandbar a few days after the breach. Then, at some point around New Year’s Eve, the sandbar was compromised near the middle, resulting in a catastrophic breach.

Smith blames the breach on the family who was photographed digging a channel in the sandbar with shovels and hands.

“They breached it at the low point, at the wrong place, toward the middle of the lagoon and it drained,” he says. “It doesn’t take much right there. You can do it with a shovel. If they had left it alone, if there had been a need to breach…public works could have breached it again at the same point to the south.”

Yet Emerson says the family who breached the sandbar isn’t responsible for the resulting deaths of the steelhead. He claims that the damage was done by the County’s initial breach.

“It worked for three days then the river did its own thing and cut north,” Emerson says. “It fell off the granite sill into deeper sand, incised through the sand berm and drained the lagoon.”

According to Emerson, the subsequent breaching was inconsequential.

“The die had been cast,” Emerson says. “The channel had been established by the County.”

Regardless of its cause, both sides can agree that the steelhead population was damaged by the secondary breach.

Smith says that at the time of the breach, around New Year’s, it’s unlikely the fish had developed enough to survive in the ocean. He cites a National Marine Fisheries Service study, which found that, in November, a full two-thirds of the population were not ready to leave.

“Even if they did survive, it’ll affect their size,” Smith says. “It’s not just whether they’ve developed, it’s whether they’ve developed enough.”