GILROY
– A popular fishing hole at Mt. Madonna County Park may soon
become just part of local lore and memory.
GILROY – A popular fishing hole at Mt. Madonna County Park may soon become just part of local lore and memory.
The county’s Parks Department is asking county supervisors to remove the word “lake” from the official title of the Sprig Lake use area, once the home of a children’s fishing program at the county park off state Highway 152 west of Gilroy.
The county announced in April that it would close the man-made lake and reconfigure it back to a naturally-flowing portion of Bodfish Creek, due to potential impacts on habitat for threatened steelhead trout.
Under the federal Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service had denied the necessary permits for the maintenance and recreational use of the lake, according to county officials. T
Besides the actual creek restoration, an equestrian staging area at the site was also slated for redesign to avoid potential contamination of the creek from horse waste.
“Due to the potential impacts to the steelhead, we’ve closed the lake and formed it back into a free-flowing stream,” said parks spokeswoman Tamara Clark-Shear Monday. “In continuing with that new use out there, we’ve changed the name.”
The reference to Ben “Sprig” Fredrickson, the first county game warden whose love for wildlife led to the educational fishing program for children at the lake, will remain in the new title “Sprig Day Use Area.”
The supervisors’ Housing, Land Use, Environment and Transportation committee, chaired by District 1 County Supervisor Don Gage, voted last week to recommend the measure to the full board, which is slated to make the final call Nov. 19. The move was also endorsed by the county’s Parks Commission.
