San Leandro Creek ( es, Arroyo de San Leandro) is a year-round natural stream in the hills above

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

in Alameda County and

Contra Costa County ) of the San Francisco Bay , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1 = State , subdivision_name1 = California , subdivision_type2 ...

of the East Bay in northern California.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed March 15, 2011

Geography

It flows along the east face of the hills, east of

and San Leandro. It runs into

Upper San Leandro Reservoir Upper San Leandro Reservoir is an artificial lake in Alameda County, California, Alameda County and Contra Costa County, California which provides water for the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD). It is impounded by the earth-filled San L ...

and then Lake Chabot, both reservoirs are North of the unincorporated town of Castro Valley. It then flows through the city of San Leandro, and after crossing Hegenberger Road just north of Oakland International Airport on into San Leandro Bay of San Francisco Bay.

Watershed

Although it is channeled and

culvert A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe, reinforced concrete or other material. In the United Kingdom ...

ed in places, it is remarkable among East Bay streams for being mostly uncovered throughout most of its course. It is joined by

Indian Creek Indian Creek may refer to the following: Communities * Indian Creek, Orange Walk District, Belize, a village in Belize * Indian Creek, Toledo, a village in Belize * Indian Creek, Florida, U.S. * Indian Creek, Illinois, U.S. * Indian Creek No. 7 Pr ...

, and then at Upper San Leandro Reservoir it is joined by Moraga Creek,

Redwood Creek Sequoioideae, popularly known as redwoods, is a subfamily of coniferous trees within the family Cupressaceae. It includes the largest and tallest trees in the world. Description The three redwood subfamily genera are '' Sequoia'' from coasta ...

, Buckhorn Creek and Kaiser Creek, then just below the spillway by Miller Creek. At Lake Chabot in Anthony Chabot Regional Park it is joined by Grass Valley Creek, then descends to San Leandro Bay. The Redwood Creek tributary is protected by Redwood Regional Park, which contains the largest remaining natural stand of coast redwood (''Sequoia sempervirens'') found in the East Bay. The creek terminates in Arrowhead Marsh in Oakland, one of the few marshlands left in the East Bay. The marsh formed in San Leandro Bay between 1855 and 1895 from sediments washed down San Leandro Creek during construction of the Lake Chabot dam and also from the logging of the San Antonio Forest.

History

San Leandro Creek was formerly named Arroyo de San Leandro, likely named by the Spanish for St. Leander, 6th-century archbishop of Seville, "Apostle of the Goths". It was crossed by El Camino Viejo now, State Route 185. The creek is known for having been the site of the first

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead (sometimes called "steelhead trout") is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coasta ...

hatchery in the world, drawing on the locally native variety of the species. The fish raised in this hatchery were sent as far away as New York. Although

(''Oncorhynchus mykiss''), was initially identified in 1792 in Kamchatka, Siberia by Johann Julius Walbaum, William P. Gibbons, founder of the California Academy of Sciences, believed in 1855 that he had discovered a new species of trout in San Leandro Creek, which he named ''Salmo iridea'' (now the coastal rainbow trout subspecies ''Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus'').Redwood Regional Park, East Bay Regional Parks District
/ref> The site was then declared a California Historical Landmark. In 1874 work began on Lake Chabot Dam and it was completed in 1875, forming a lake. Lake Chabot serves as a standby emergency water supply but was opened to limited recreation in the 1960s. Four miles upstream, a second dam built in 1926 formed San Leandro Reservoir.

Ecology

It sustains the

redwood Sequoioideae, popularly known as redwoods, is a subfamily of coniferous trees within the family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affini ...

groves in the unincorporated town of Canyon, California and was formerly lined with numerous oaks and willows in its lower course. Historical records indicate that Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') occurred in at least two San Francisco Bay Area watersheds, San Leandro Creek in Alameda County, and San Mateo Creek in San Mateo County. In the 1870s, “quinnant”, or Chinook salmon were reported from lower San Leandro Creek and persisted in Lake Chabot for several years following the completion of Lake Chabot Dam in 1875. California Department of Fish and Game Warden George Smalley reported runs of coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch'') and steelhead trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus'') in San Leandro Creek “…in the early days” and “…that after the completion of the Upper San Leandro Reservoir a run still persisted to the base of the dam for many years”. Leidy considered this single historical account of coho in the creek "reliable...since we believe that suitable habitat was present in the watershed." As mentioned above, Gibbons discovered rainbow trout in San Leandro Creek in 1855. Thus, three species of Oncorhynchus once inhabited San Leandro Creek. Today, Lake Chabot's rainbow trout are hatchery fish, but the rainbow trout in San Leandro Reservoir are descended from native steelhead which were trapped when San Leandro Dam was constructed on Redwood Creek in 1926. The San Leandro trout have maintained genetic integrity with native coastal rainbow trout since they have not been mixed with hatchery trout, and were used in a 1983 reintroduction of steelhead to Wildcat Creek in Tilden Regional Park.

References

External links