Searsville Dam has disrupted San Francisquito Creek on Stanford University's campus for more than a century, and in that time it has done more harm than good. Built to store irrigation water, the dam has lost more than 90% of its original storage capacity to sediment buildup, no longer supplies potable water or hydropower, and has been classified as a High Hazard dam by the US Army Corps of Engineers due to structural cracking and its proximity to the San Andreas Fault. Meanwhile, the reservoir behind it produces harmful algae blooms and methane emissions, and the dam itself has cut off one of the last wild steelhead runs into San Francisco Bay from the spawning habitat it depends on.

CalTrout is working alongside Stanford University, the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority, Santa Clara Valley Water District, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, NOAA Fisheries, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the community coalition Beyond Searsville Dam to keep full dam removal under serious consideration, alongside interim measures for volitional fish passage. That effort reached a major milestone when the project's environmental review was updated to formally include dam removal as an alternative, with a Draft Environmental Impact Report expected in late 2026.

Removing Searsville Dam would restore natural sediment flow into San Francisco Bay, revive the wetlands and riparian forest once known as Confluence Valley, and give steelhead a real chance to recover in one of the last wild runs the Bay has left.