Cronin fought the good fight for fish

The first time I met Leo Cronin, he said, “I’m dying. I’ve got congestive heart failure. But I’m gonna make sure I live long enough to make sure the bastards let the fish get through.”

Well, to his surprise, Leo ended up living another 15 years, to 65. In that time, he became the force that overcame many political stonewalls to help create fish passage and ladders on Marin County streams for endangered coho salmon and threatened steelhead to reach spawning areas.

Over the weekend, Marin reopened what is now called the Leo T. Cronin Fish Viewing Area on Lagunitas Creek along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. As you drive west, the parking area is just beyond the Shafter Bridge on the left, about a halfmile west of the Lagunitas Store. It’s also a trailhead for the Bay Ridge Trail for hiking and biking.

If Croninwere here, he’d tell you it was his favorite spot to see native salmon and steelhead swim upstream, as the spawning season gets under way.

On one of our escapades, he took me there in the 1980s, glowed as he showed me huge coho salmon, and told me how much he enjoyed poking holes in bureaucratic gasbags.

“The thing is, since I’m going to die, I’ve got nothing to lose by just laying it all out there,” Cronin said. “I think we can get the fish ladders in. But we still need the water to run down the stream. Those bastards don’t want to give it up.”

And then he’d laugh, this big gut-level guffaw that told you he’d somehow win in the end.

Well, he did. On Thursday, under orders from the California State Water Resources Control Board, the Marin Municipal Water District increased stream flows from Kent Lake to Lagunitas Creek to 35 cubic feet per second. That’s enough to attract the fish upstream from Tomales Bay and allow their passage to spawning areas. Under law, the stream is guaranteed at least 20 cfs, and with a good start to the rainy season and large populations of salmon in the ocean, it looks like a big year for Marin’s salmon and steelhead.

The recent counts of juvenile fish in west Marin creeks are outstanding: 2,580 juvenile steelhead, the highest since the counts started in 1993; 797 coho salmon fry, the highest in six years, and above the 19-year average of 500.

Cronin would say it’s a sight to make you want to live a little longer.