Site GA1: Glen Annie/Tecolotito Creek at Hollister Avenue

From Hollister Avenue, turn towards the mountains on Los Carneros Road. At the first light, turn right into a small business park. Drive straight back to the furthest corner of the parking lot (near Hollister) and park. From here, you will see a manicured dirt pathway between the parking lot and the creek area. Walk along this pathway toward the mountains for a short distance until you see a clearing in the vegetation, then proceed carefully down the stream bank to the creek. The creek is deep and wide at this point with plenty of water for sampling. We sample at two sites along this creek; this is our lowermost (downstream) site. Tecolotito Creek is the largest agricultural stream in the Santa Barbara area and sampling it at two locations allows us to separate the pollution signal originating from the avocado and citrus ranches (and a golf course) in the foothill area from that coming from Hwy. 101 and commercial uses around the sampling site. Although six major drainages flow into the Goleta Slough, four of them enter on the eastern end and provide almost no water to most of the slough's wetlands. Tecolotito and Los Carneros creeks, although smaller than the other tributaries, supply most of the water. And of the two, Tecolotito is the source of most of the slough's nutrient contamination.

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