Here's where California's remarkably wet year is bringing welcome recovery

WILLIAMS, Calif. — Breathing in the rain-scrubbed air and absorbing the splendor of Topanga Creek, as it danced and pooled before her eyes, Rosi Dagit had to smile.

"This is like heaven for a steelhead," said Dagit, a senior biologist with the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains. "If I was a steelhead, this is where I would lay my eggs."

This winter's strong and persistent rains have revived a creek that, in recent years amid a punishing drought, had been reduced to a series of ponds and puddles. The much-needed water greatly enhances the prospects of reproduction for the endangered southern steelhead. And it has revived habitat for myriad other species in the Topanga Creek watershed, from a tiny minnow to frogs and newts to the coyotes and mountain lions that roam the canyon.

Humans share in the watery