Program Spotlights
- Backyard Bots Win this year's Water Conservation Video Contest!
News & Announcements
- Napa RCD Awards Emerging Environmental Leaders Scholarships
- Grower Spotlight: Red Boutaghou of FilRouge Vineyard
- Napa Open Space Trail Survey
- Next WICC Meeting is July 22
- Conservation Champion: Rusty Cohn
In Case You Missed It
- Trash Talkin' with Tim & Kendra... & Napa RCD's Eric!
- Napa RCD + Caring Community Members = More Monarchs!
- North Coast Soil Hub E-News - Summer Edition Just Released
Upcoming Programs
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Backyard Bots Win This Year's Water Conservation Video Contest! |
Napa RCD, City of Napa Water Division, and Napa Sanitation District are pleased to announce the winners for this year’s contest that asked participants to create a 30-second PSA describing their vision of a water-wise future in Napa County.
The first-place video, “ No Water No Future” was created by the Backyard Bots, a group of creative local high school students from three different schools: Ava Dominguez, Giulia Guerrera, Keira Prouty, and Sophie Gonsier. This first prize came with a $250 cash prize and their video will be shown in the Century Napa Valley Theatre before feature films. Second place, with a $150 cash prize, went to “ Ryleigh’s Water-Wise Future,” a commercial with tips for water conservation created by Kaeleigh Rogerson. “ Conserve Our Water for a Brighter Future” received third place and exhibits the photography skill of a local River Middle School student Abygail Sims. Third place came with a $100 cash prize.
Thanks so much to our creative participants! Imagining a water-wise future is something we should all be doing, and we loved seeing your visions!
Click on the image below to view the First Place video on YouTube:
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Napa RCD Awards Emerging Environmental Leaders Scholarships to Two Local Teens |
Napa RCD is proud to announce this year’s Emerging Environmental Leaders Scholarship winners: Vanessa Chen and Djuna Pisani of Vintage High School. |
Djuna credits her participation with the Napa Youth Stewardship Council, Women’s Science Intensive at Audubon Canyon Ranch, and climate change rallies as formative to her pursuit of conservation.
“I realized that using my voice to speak up about things I am passionate about gave me power and taught me confidence.” Djuna plans on attending UC Davis in the fall to study environmental policy or environmental science.
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Vanessa has participated in Napa Youth Stewardship Council cohort since 2016 and is an Eagle Scout! Vanessa recalls her leadership experiences with the Teen Advocates for Science Communication at the Cal Academy of Sciences, guiding oak planting and clean-up projects with Napa RCD, and Scouting as influential in her life.
“The earth is our home and it’s our responsibility to take care of it now more than ever, starting with picking up trash and raising awareness.” Vanessa has committed to attend Stanford University in the fall to study physics.
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We’re inspired by these young women's extraordinary leadership, and grateful to have been a part of their journey. The Napa RCD awards two $500 Emerging Environmental Leaders Scholarships each year.
If you would like to help us support local emerging environmental leaders like Djuna and Vanessa, donate today! Visit NapaRCD.org/Donate
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Napa County Grower Spotlight:
Red Boutaghou, FilRouge Vineyard
An Interview with Miguel Garcia, Napa RCD
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Red San Pedro is the Vineyard Manager/owner of Fil Rouge Vineyard on Mt. Veeder in Napa Valley. In 2019, Red signed up for Napa RCD’s Irrigation Toolkit program to learn how to use monitoring data to make better decisions about when and how much to irrigate.
As part of the program, Miguel Garcia, Napa RCD’s Sustainable Ag Program Manager, performed a distribution uniformity in the vineyard and installed 6 soil moisture probes to help Red track water usage. Since then, Red has also been working with Miguel to incorporate the soil moisture probe data into an irrigation management plan. According to Red, joining the program “was a big deal” for him and since joining he has been able to “cut irrigation by half.” Since Miguel is a soil fanatic, Red couldn’t help but learn about Napa RCD’s soil health services. Red requested a soil health assessment in the vineyard from Miguel to help Red determine potential areas for improvement.
What motivated you to collect samples to asses your vineyard's soil health?
A lot of planning and personal hard work went into planting our year-old home vineyard in Mt. Veeder last year! We are committed to ensuring the long-term health of our vines, and do believe that everything begins with investing in soil health.
How did Napa RCD help you understand your soil's health?
We are willing students, and value learning from others’ experience and expertise. Over the past three years, Napa RCD’s workshops have helped us become better informed on a wide range of best practices. We trust Napa RCD as a resource, so it was only natural to seek their help this year with on-site visits, (properly) taking a soil sample in our vineyard, understanding the results of the soil analysis, and getting Napa RCD’s feedback on the lab recommendations.
How can RCDs continue to help you reach a higher level of soil health in the future?
We appreciate & look forward to the variety of soil health workshops Napa RCD offers during the year, and hope these continue so we and other growers can remain current and well-informed.
We have sought and received guidance from Napa RCD for three years- even before we were growers- when our home vineyard was still in ideation. We value the continued access to the tools, technology, and guidance from the Napa RCD team.
Thanks, Red, for your constant quest for new and innovative solutions to the issues facing vineyards here in Napa County. We look forward to seeing you at future workshops!
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Napa Open Space Trail Survey |
Help Napa Open Space keep improving our parks, trails, and outdoor recreation options!
The Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District wants to know what you would like to see in your parks. As they continue to open new parks and improve existing parks and trails across the county, they want to try to meet the needs of the community.
Please fill out the 2021 Recreation Survey and let the District know how you use parks and what you'd like to see more of so that they can make our county's parks and trails even better for us all to enjoy.
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Next WICC Meeting is July 22 |
The next Watershed Information and Conservation Council meeting will be held on July 22 at 3pm via Zoom.
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July Conservation Champion:
Rusty Cohn
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We are 100% certain that at least some of you know our July Conservation Champion, Rusty Cohn. If you're on Facebook or NextDoor, you may know him as the one sharing photos of local cute baby animals: the downtown Napa beavers!
Rusty does a great job inspiring us to treasure the wildlife that we have in our downtown. In addition to sharing his photos, he also shares stories and behaviors he observes while photographing these creatures. So who is Rusty?
Rusty has been in Napa 10 years and says his favorite part about being here is that it is a small town with a slower pace of life that is matched with a great diversity of wildlife so close by. After visiting his daughter here, he and his wife fell in love with the area and decided to move here once he retired. Now, Rusty keeps busy with several hobbies (including photographing local wildlife) and walking his dog Toby.
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After first noticing a beaver dam next to Hawthorne Suites Hotel while out walking, he became fascinated with beavers and all of the other wildlife that were living in and near the beaver ponds. Rusty says his favorite part about photographing and sharing the animals found in our urban landscapes is that you never know what you might see next. He finds it exciting to observe the variety of wildlife, and he hopes his photos encourage others to become more interested in viewing and protecting the diverse wildlife of Napa County.
One thing Rusty wants us all to know: "Napa is a wonderland of biodiversity, get outside and enjoy it!"
Not only does Rusty share photos on Facebook and NextDoor, he also shares videos on his YouTube page!
We love community members who are excited about seeing and sharing local wildlife, and Rusty is a great example of that. Thanks for helping us get to know the nature in our own neighborhoods!
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Trash Talkin' with Tim & Kendra... & Napa RCD's Eric! |
Join Napa RCD's Eric McKee on the weekly Trash Talkin’ with Tim and Kendra virtual event from Napa Recycling & Waste Services and the City of Napa. Eric will be on hand to share valuable information about preventing pollution from pet waste, one of Napa County’s top pollutants.
Eric will join Tim & Kendra on July 14 from 1-2pm.
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Napa RCD + Caring Community Members = More Monarchs! |
Napa RCD recently received new funding from the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts (CARCD) to work with farmers and ranchers on monarch conservation projects in Napa County. We put the call out to see if anyone would be interested in adding monarch habitat, and we were quickly overwhelmed by the demand! It's so great to be part of a community that cares about its insects.
In addition to working with individual landowners, this grant also allows us to create a working group here in Napa County that is focused on Monarchs.
We are looking to create an ACTION-ORIENTED group of organizations, scientists, schools, parks, community members, etc. to leverage knowledge and passion to make an impact for monarchs specifically in Napa County. The short term goal is to identify local problems that we can solve collectively, and to find a solution to at least one of those issues. In the long term, this group would look for funding to keep making our County more monarch-friendly.
If you are interested in a future project on your property or would like to be involved with the monarch working group, contact Ruby Stahel at Ruby@NapaRCD.org
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North Coast Soil Hub E-News - Summer Edition Just Released |
Did you miss the Summer 2021 North Coast Soil Hub Newsletter?
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Did you know that we have a separate email list for volunteers? |
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Help support Napa RCD - Donate Today!
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Napa County Resource Conservation District | 707-252-4189 | NapaRCD.org
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