| Santiago Creek | |
| Name Other: | Cañada de Madera |
| Map: | SantiagoMapFinal.jpg |
| Map Size: | 270 |
| Subdivision Type1: | Country |
| Subdivision Name1: | United States |
| Subdivision Type2: | State |
| Subdivision Name2: | California |
| Subdivision Type3: | County |
| Subdivision Name3: | Orange |
| Subdivision Type4: | District |
| Subdivision Name4: | Cleveland National Forest |
| Subdivision Type5: | Municipality |
| Subdivision Name5: | Orange |
| Length: | 34miles |
| Discharge1 Location: | Villa Park |
| Discharge1 Min: | 0cuft/s |
| Discharge1 Avg: | 6.3cuft/s |
| Discharge1 Max: | 11000cuft/s |
| Source1: | Santiago Peak |
| Source1 Location: | Cleveland National Forest |
| Source1 Coordinates: | 33.7161°N -117.5392°W[1] |
| Source1 Elevation: | 4870feet |
| Mouth: | Santa Ana River |
| Mouth Location: | Santa Ana |
| Mouth Coordinates: | 33.7697°N -117.8908°W |
| Mouth Elevation: | 108feet |
| Basin Size: | 100.6sqmi |
| Tributaries Left: | Limestone Canyon, Handy Creek |
| Tributaries Right: | Silverado Canyon, Harding Canyon, Baker Canyon, Black Star Canyon, Fremont Canyon (Orange County, California), Weir Canyon |
Santiago Creek is a major watercourse in Orange County in the U.S. state of California. About 34miles long, it drains most of the northern Santa Ana Mountains and is a tributary to the Santa Ana River. It is one of the longest watercourses entirely within the county.[2] The creek shares its name with Santiago Peak, at 5687feet the highest point in Orange County, on whose slopes its headwaters rise.
The Santiago Creek watershed covers about 100.6mi2 in northern Orange County. The upper part of the creek is free-flowing, while the lower section is urbanized and includes parts of the cities of Tustin, Orange, and Santa Ana. Below the Villa Park Dam the creek is mostly channelized and flows only during heavy winter storms.
Historically the Santiago Creek provided water for the Tongva people, whose territory extended over much of northern present-day Orange County and into the Los Angeles Basin. Native Americans have inhabited the Santiago Creek and Santa Ana River watershed for up to 12,000 years. The creek was named by the Spanish Gaspar de Portolá expedition of 1769, which crossed the Santa Ana River near where it meets the Santiago Creek.[3] In the 1870s there was a short-lived silver boom along the tributary Silverado Creek. In 1929 the Santiago Dam was built to form Irvine Lake, to supply irrigation water. Pipelines from Irvine Lake still contribute a small amount of water to the municipality of Villa Park.
Santiago Creek rises in the Cleveland National Forest, between Santiago Peak and Modjeska Peak, which together form the prominent Saddleback of the Santa Ana Mountains.[4] [5] The creek runs south-southwest toward Portola Hills before turning northwest. Once out of the national forest it passes through the town of Modjeska and meets the first major tributary, Harding Canyon Creek, from the right. Downstream, it receives Baker and Silverado creeks, both from the right. Past the first Santiago Canyon Road crossing, the gorge widens to a broad alluvial plain, where the valley walls pull away and decrease in height. The creek's perennial surface flows are limited to this upper stretch; below here the water flows underground except during the wet season of winter and early spring.
The creek then empties into Irvine Lake, which is also fed by Limestone Canyon, a left-bank tributary. The 700acres reservoir is formed by the 110feet Santiago Dam, located at its north end.[4] [5] Irvine Lake provides water to Villa Park and Orange via a pipeline and flume to Peters Canyon Reservoir. Because the flume diverts the creek's entire flow, the creek below the dam is dry except during floods. Below the dam the dry riverbed meets Fremont Canyon, a right bank tributary, and crosses underneath California State Route 241. It then flows northwest, bisecting Irvine Regional Park, and receives Weir Canyon Creek from the right. Near Villa Park, the Villa Park Dam forms a flood control reservoir to control spills from Irvine Lake. Below Villa Park, the creek is confined to a flood control channel for the remaining 7miles of its course.[4] [5] Flowing roughly southwest between the cities of Orange and Santa Ana, it receives Handy Creek from the left, then crosses under California State Route 55 and 22, through Hart Memorial Park and Santiago Creek Park. Because the creek is dry most of the year, portions of the river bed are used as parking lots when conditions permit. The creek then crosses under Interstate 5 and continues west toward the Santa Ana River. Its confluence is on the river's left bank, inside the Riverview Golf Course. About 10miles below the confluence with Santiago Creek, the Santa Ana River enters the Pacific Ocean at Huntington Beach.[4] [5]
The Santiago Creek watershed occupies much of the northwestern end of the Santa Ana Mountains, and is located generally north of the city of Irvine. It is bounded on the south by the San Diego Creek, Aliso Creek and Oso Creek drainage areas, on the southeast by the Trabuco Creek watershed, and on the north and west by tributaries of the Santa Ana River. At 100.6mi2 in size, the Santiago Creek watershed makes up about 3.6% of the entire 2400mi2 Santa Ana River watershed - but makes up about 65.7% of the 153.2mi2 of Santa Ana River watershed within Orange County, and 10.6% of 948mi2 Orange County. Most of the watershed is unincorporated, but about a third lies within Anaheim, Villa Park, Orange, and Santa Ana.[6]
Elevations in the watershed range from 5687feet at Santiago Peak to 108feet at the Santa Ana River confluence. Although only tiny parts of the Santiago Creek watershed do not lie within Orange County, it closely borders Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The Santa Ana Mountains rise higher on the right bank of the creek (the north bank) than on the left (south) bank, and parts of the northernmost course of the creek run through the Puente Hills.
The major tributary watersheds, in order of their appearance from southeast to northwest (roughly in downstream order) are: Harding Canyon, Williams Canyon, Silverado Canyon, Ladd Canyon (tributary of Silverado Canyon), Baker Canyon, Black Star Canyon, Fremont Canyon, Blind Canyon, and Weir Canyon on the right bank; and Limestone Canyon and Handy Creek on the left bank. Of the right bank tributaries, the Silverado Canyon, Ladd Canyon and Fremont Canyon sub-watersheds each extend a little into Riverside County. The Silverado/Ladd Canyon subwatershed is the largest, and Williams Canyon is the smallest.[4]
Santiago Creek has 10 major tributaries along its course, most of which come in while the creek flows through Santiago Canyon. Fremont Canyon is the longest, while Silverado Canyon is by area the largest. The largest sub-tributary watershed is Ladd Canyon, a tributary of Silverado Canyon. Many of the upper tributaries are spring-fed and perennial. An uppercase R stands for right bank, and L is for left bank.
| Tributary name | Length | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Denomination | Miles | Kilometers | Rank |
| Headwaters | |||
| Harding Canyon (R) | 3.5 | 5.6 | 6 |
| Williams Canyon (R) | 1.3 | 2.1 | 10 |
| Silverado Canyon (R) | 10.8 | 17.3 | 1 |
| Ladd Canyon (Silverado Canyon tributary) (R) | 4.2 | 6.7 | 4 |
| Baker Canyon (R) | 5.5 | 8.9 | 8 |
| Black Star Canyon (R) | 8.5 | 13.7 | 3 |
| Lake Irvine | |||
| Limestone Canyon (L) | 8.7 | 14.0 | 5 |
| Santiago Creek Dam | |||
| Fremont Canyon (R) | 12.0 | 19.3 | 2 |
| Blind Canyon (R) | 2.4 | 3.9 | 11 |
| Weir Canyon (R) | 4.6 | 7.4 | 9 |
| Handy Creek (L) | 6.0 | 9.65 | 7 |
| Confluence with the Santa Ana River | |||
The dominant geological feature in the Santiago Creek watershed are the Santa Ana Mountains. The northern portion of the mountains, which Santiago Creek drains, is composed of rocks from the pre-Triassic to the Quaternary (251–2.6 MYA).[7] These rocks consist primarily of slate, sandstone, conglomerate, limestone, and other sedimentary rocks.[8] The uplift of the Santa Ana Mountains began approximately 5.5 million years ago along the Elsinore Fault Zone, which extends north from near its namesake Lake Elsinore area.[9]
Before the latter 19th century, Santiago Creek and its tributaries were free flowing perennial streams spilling out of Santa Ana Mountains canyons onto the broad, alluvial floodplain. The creek wound on the plain for the rest of its course to its confluence with the Santa Ana River. coast live oaks (Quercus agrifolia), California sycamores (Platanus racemosa), white alders (Alnus rhombifolia), native willows (Salix species), and other riparian habitat vegetation lined the route of the creek and its primary tributaries. The creek and adjacent habitats supported a wide variety of birds, amphibians, fish, insects, and mammals.
Most of the creek originally lay in the territory of the Acjachemen and the Tongva peoples, two large Native American groups of present-day Orange, Los Angeles, and San Diego Counties. The Acjachemen lived to the south, and the Tongva to the north, of the southwest-running Aliso Creek that flows to the Pacific in an area southeast of the Santiago Creek watershed. An Acjachemen-Tongva boundary terminated at the Aliso Creek headwaters, but it is uncertain where the boundary was that divided Santiago Creek within the native territories. Archaeological evidence suggests that the upper portions of the creek were settled by Native Americans, and some historical accounts including those of the Spanish settlers, mention the Acjachemen lived in the canyon of upper Santiago Creek.[10]
These first inhabitants of the Santiago Creek Canyon lived in semi-permanent villages close to running water. The upper canyon was in the Acjachemen homelands, while the lower (northwestern) part of the watershed, likely downstream of present-day Irvine Lake, was in the Tongva homelands. The Native Americans had been drawn to the area by the abundant riparian zone found along Santiago Creek and some of its perennial tributaries. They subsisted on a diet of primarily acorns, using the ground acorn powder to form a type of porridge known as atole. They ground the acorns in stone mortars carved into large boulders and rock formations, with some remaining in the creek's canyon areas.[11]
In 1769 the Spanish Portolá expedition, first European land exploration of Alta California, traveled northwest along the southern edge of the Santa Ana Mountains. They camped near where Santiago Creek emerges from the mountains on July 27, and near the Santa Ana River on July 28. Padre Juan Crespi noted in his diary that the creek was named for the Apostle Santiago el Mayor".[12]
Later Spaniards named the creek's canyon Cañada de Madera (timber canyon). The mountain whose southwestern flank is the creek's headwaters, known as Kalawpa by the indigenous peoples, was renamed Santiago Peak, after the creek.[13]
The Spanish left accounts mentioning the Juaneño, the name given to the Acjachemen by the Spanish missionaries after the founding of Mission San Juan Capistrano, located to the southeast at the confluence of San Juan and Trabuco Creeks.[13]
One of the first settlers in the Santiago Creek watershed was Jose Pablo Grijalva, a former Spanish soldier, who arrived in 1784. He and his son-in-law, José Antonio Yorba, began grazing cattle in Santiago Creek Canyon in the 1790s. He built an adobe house beside Santiago Creek in 1796. Later settlers included the Peraltas and Sepúlvedas.[14]
A well-known massacre of Native Americans occurred in 1831, in present-day Black Star Canyon, which was called Cañada de los Indios (Indian Canyon) in Spanish. The retaliation was one in a series against local Tongva (Gabrielino) Native Americans taking horses from the Mexican ranchos. A party of American fur trappers set out to retrieve stolen horses. They followed hoofprints into Cañada de los Indios, came upon a Tongva village, massacred the native residents, and took the remaining horses. Though some managed to escape, many Indians were killed in the massacre. The village's site is designated as California Historical Landmark #217.[16]
Historically, Santiago Creek supported a rich riparian community along its shores. The Santa Ana Mountains supported a large population of California grizzly bear, now extinct, and other large mammals such as mountain lions, bobcats, and coyotes. Today, the upper Santiago Creek remains much in its natural state, while the lower creek is listed as highly disturbed and no longer supports much native vegetation and wildlife.[22] Historically, the creek is known to have sustained a population of steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), but with the construction of Villa Park and Santiago Creek dams, their anadromous spawning runs from the sea have been destroyed. However, 13 specimens of the land-locked form of steelhead, rainbow trout, were fin-sampled recently from Harding Canyon and genetic analysis has shown them to be of native and not hatchery stocks.[23] Historically, at least two tributaries to Santiago Creek, Silverado and Harding Canyons, also supported steelhead.[24] The watershed now primarily supports introduced fish in Lake Irvine.
Recreation along Santiago Creek, in its watershed, and at its reservoirs includes:
From mouth to source:[39]