The Land Trust for Santa Barbara County was awarded $98,000 Friday in state Coastal Conservancy funds to develop a steelhead restoration plan for Arroyo Hondo.

The trust, a nonprofit group, owns the 780-acre Arroyo Hondo Ranch on the Gaviota Coast, just east of the Gaviota State Park. "Arroyo Hondo" means "deep creek," and the canyon it flows through has been likened to a small-scale Yosemite. Studies show that the creek has some of the most undisturbed habitat on the South Coast for steelhead trout, an endangered species. Counting very young fish, there are thousands of steelhead in Arroyo Hondo right now.

At the same time, a 500-foot-long tunnel under Highway 101 at the mouth of the creek makes it difficult for steelhead to swim upstream to their historic spawning grounds. The restoration plan might propose tearing up the concrete at the bottom of the tunnel, said Carolyn Chandler, the trust projects director. Clusters of boulders could be placed there to capture water and provide resting pools for fish.

Or the trust may consider placing fish "baffles" -- parking bumper-shaped barriers -- on the concrete tunnel bottom.

"Our goal is to make it more like a creek environment so that they can swim it more readily and more often," Ms. Chandler said.

In addition, she said, the trust will use the conservancy grant to repair erosion damage to the creek from old ranch roads, removing mud that is choking Arroyo Hondo.