Mendocino County RCD News & Updates
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In the Winter 2020 Newsletter:
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- Highlighted Project
- Upcoming Events
- Recent Events
- Helpful Resources
- 2019 in review
- Willits News
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We had a wonderful response to our Holiday Appeal. Thank you so much to our generous donors for supporting our programs!
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Best Management Practices for Cannabis Growers Video
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Mendocino County Resource Conservation District (MCRCD) teamed up this fall with Happy Day Farms to produce an 8-minute video, based on the
Watershed Best Management Practices for Cannabis Growers and Other Rural Gardeners
guide. “The video is a great way to reach a wide audience in practical ways to conserve water, enhance soil health, and protect watersheds,” says project lead Patty Madigan. “A video is a powerful educational tool to communicate conservation guidelines.”
Featuring panoramic vistas and gorgeous footage of a diverse enterprise, the video was shot on a northern Mendocino County organic farm that integrates its production with farm-grown veggies, flowers, and eggs—and legal Cannabis. The focus of the 8-minute video is “what it means to be a good steward of
the land”. Funding for the video was obtained through the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts, through grants from the Resources Legacy Fund and the Campbell Foundation. The video can be seen at
https://vimeo.com/376043408
and the 2018 version of the BMP
print guide is available for download, in English and Spanish, at
www.mcrcd.org/publications
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Navarro River Watershed
Community Meeting and Project Tour
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Restoring Stream Flows and Increasing Water Supply: Strategies for Farms, People, and Fish in the Navarro River Watershed
Community Meeting at River’s Bend Retreat Center,
Thursday, March 5th, 6 - 9 pm.
Potluck supper 6-7 pm, presentations begin promptly at 7:00 pm. Updates and strategies regarding water supply reliability and storage, fisheries restoration, soil and water conservation, flow enhancement, and volunteer monitoring will be shared by the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District, The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, Mendocino Redwood Company, and Shippensburg University.
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Navarro Watershed Restoration Projects Tour
Friday, March 6th, 9 am - noon
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Tour will begin at the Anderson Valley High School parking lot. We will visit off-stream water storage, large wood, rainwater catchment, and stormwater projects.
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These events are being paid for through funds from the CA Wildlife Conservation Board, Prop 84, and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
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Growing Healthy Soils on Ranches & Farms
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Saturday, February 1st, 9 am - 3 pm.
Ridgewood Ranch, Willits
Please bring your own lunch.
Topics will include:
• Soil health
• Replacing weeds with high quality forage
• Planning profitability
• Ideal land infrastructure and layout
• Using high animal impact to build soil, grassland health, animal performance, and productivity
• Accelerating improvements in grasslands, oak woodlands, riparian corridors, and wetlands with planned grazing
• Biological Monitoring
Lead by Richard King of Rancher-to-Rancher, this will be an interactive day with th
e goal of creating an environment for participation, observation, and shared learning.
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CDFW Potter Valley Elk Surveys
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The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) will be conducting surveys to count elk in Potter Valley. This will likely take place this summer, and CDFW has asked the Mendocino County Farm Bureau (MCFB) to assist with coordination and outreach. The MCFB would like to begin a list of interested property owners now. To conduct these surveys, CDFW would drive the roads in Potter Valley and count any elk sighted and determine their age (adult or calf) and sex (male or female). These estimates will help modify existing tag quotas for elk harvest, which is the main tool used to manage elk populations in California.
Potter Valley includes a substantial amount of private land, and CDFW is needing to connect with landowners to conduct these surveys and get the best possible estimate of elk numbers. There are two ways landowners can grant CDFW permission: 1) they can sign an access agreement for elk surveys, or 2) they can escort CDFW staff on their property to conduct elk surveys. CDFW will also be wanting landowner advise on where to focus survey efforts leading up to the survey day. CDFW’s goal is to survey elk in a single day so they can get the best estimate without double counting animals.
Contact Lindy Kersmarki with the Mendocino County Farm Bureau at
membership@mendofb.org
if you would like to participate in these surveys. If you are outside of the Potter Valley area but are struggling with elk encounters, please contact Lindy as well so she has that information for future efforts.
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Improving Rural Roads for Watershed Health
Coastal Workshop
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MCRCD and Pacific Watershed Associates hosted a free Road Improvement Workshop on December 12, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, at the Lyme Redwood Conference Room in Fort Bragg. All 33 attendees received a copy of the
Handbook for
Forest, Ranch and
Rural Roads
(2015) and the
Watershed Best Management Practices for Cannabis Growers and Other Rural Gardeners
(2018), both available for free download at
www.mcrcd.org/publications
. Participants learned about progressive road design and maintenance strategies to reduce road-related erosion while protecting habitat for fish and wildlife. After a 2-hour classroom presentation, the group caravanned up to the Usal/South Fork Eel watersheds to review recent road improvements on Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc. property. The goal of road sediment reduction is to decrease runoff to streams within our coastal watersheds, with the added benefit of lower annual maintenance costs. The class and field tour were led by Colin Hughes, Engineering Geologist at Pacific Watershed Associates.
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Workshops in Eel River Watershed to Improve Rural Roads and Protect Water Quality
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MCRCD and Pacific Watershed Associates also hosted two road improvement workshops in October and November in Willits and Laytonville, respectively. The over 30 people in attendance received a copy of the
Handbook for Forest, Ranch and Rural Roads
(2015) and most took a free copy of the
Watershed Best Management Practices for Cannabis Growers and Other Rural Gardeners
(2018). Progressive road design that follows the Handbook guidelines reduces maintenance costs, monitoring time, promotes natural hill slope infiltration, and protects water quality.
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CDFA Healthy Soils Program Funding Opportunity
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MCRCD received grant funding to provide technical assistance to applicants and will host application workshops in Mendocino and Lake Counties. Get in touch with Katy Brantley at
katy.brantley@
mcrcd.org
for more details, and check our Facebook page for announcements.
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The CDFA Healthy Soils Program (HSP) Incentives Program provides financial assistance to growers and ranchers across California to implement conservation management pract
ices that sequester carbon, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve soil health. The m
aximum grant award amount will be $100,000, and CDFA hopes to better fund the full cost of project implementation this round.
Applications are expected to b
e released in February, but the
draft Request for Grant Applications is available now on the CDFA website.
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Vineyard Soil Health Assessments
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North Coast Soil Health Hub is a network of wine grape growers, wine industry representatives, scientists, and agricultural professionals working together to help improve soil health in the vineyards of Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino Counties.
RCDs in all three counties are offering soil health assessments to grape growers to evaluate various physical, chemical, and biological soil properties. This spring will be the last round of sampling under a NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG), so let Katy Brantley know if you are interested in this opportunity.
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Multiple workshops will be hosted at vineyards around Mendocino County in early April to discuss soil management strategies in collaboration with NRCS and UC Cooperative Extension. Get in touch with Katy Brantley at
katy.brantley@mcrcd.org
for more details, and check our Facebook page for announcements.
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Erosion control and erosion prevention designed to protect a road, including its drainage structures and fills, from serious episodic erosion during large storms and from chronic erosion during intervening periods.
Photo:
Note the small twig lodged across the culvert opening that can begin plugging the pipe during storm events. Note also the crushed culvert top that reduced capacity by at least 30%.
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Thank you for helping us conserve, protect, and restore wild and working landscapes to enhance the health of the water, soil, and forests in Mendocino County in 2019! Here are some of our highlights:
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- Russian River Cleanup 2019 had 152 volunteers, a new record for Ukiah, and removed 2,500 pounds of trash and recycling--1.25 tons!
- MCRCD completed the Drought Response Outreach Program for Schools (DROPS) project at Ukiah High to install 16,000 square feet of rain gardens and bioretention basins that capture and clean a total of 4.5 million gallons of stormwater each year. MCRCD and Ukiah Unified School District received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from Rep. Jared Huffman’s office for the project.
- MCRCD also completed a DROPS Stormwater Project at Anderson Valley Unified School District’s two campuses in Boonville. Filter basins, rain gardens, and 10,000 gallons of rainwater catchment were installed between the two school campuses. With just under 6,000 square feet of low impact development (LID) projects installed, this enables approximately 1.4 million gallons of stormwater to infiltrate into the soils per year.
- MCRCD’s work revegetating 1.3 acres along Robinson Creek in Boonville with California native trees and shrubs reached success criteria by the Army Corps of Engineers. This project was funded by Caltrans as mitigation for impacts related to road improvements along highways 128 and 253. Two interpretive panels were also installed as part of the project.
- Through the forestry program, we provided forestry technical assistance for 77 landowners and presented on fuels reduction and forest health management at 4 workshops.
- MCRCD facilitated the planting of over 105,000 conifer seedlings on 545 acres and preformed hazardous tree assessments around 50 homes within the Redwood Complex Fire footprint.
- Through a California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Fisheries Restoration Grant Program, MCRCD and NRCS fenced out livestock on 1.25 miles of Big Rock Creek and provided an alternative water source for cattle to enhance fish habitat in the Eel River watershed near Laytonville.
- MCRCD prepared a Mussel Prevention Plan for the Mill Creek Ponds in Talmage to meet CDFW program requirements to prevent infestation of exotic, invasive species in our fresh water lakes and ponds.
- As part of a DWR funded project through the North Coast Resource Partnership, MCRCD completed fish passage barrier removal and riparian restoration in Denmark Creek, tributary to Anderson Creek in the Navarro Watershed. We removed invasive Arundo donax (Giant reed) at five sites and installed two willow brush mattresses along the Russian River in Ukiah.
- We performed irrigation audits and water conservation upgrades on sports fields and ornamental landscapes on four school campuses and installed xeriscaping and a rainwater catchment system with students at Mendocino College.
- A Sustainable Agricultural Land Conservation (SALC) Program grant was awarded in December, allowing the MCRCD to work alongside many stakeholders in the County over the next two years to protect valuable agricultural lands while also supporting sustainable housing development.
- Mendocino County Fire Safe Council (MCFSC) Board of Directors hired a new Executive Director, Mr. Scott Cratty, starting a new chapter. Visit their website for more information regarding the MCFSC.
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The Willits Bypass Mitigation lands is a compensatory mitigation project managed by MCRCD. A working landscape focusing on the rehabilitation of native habitats, the project has a public education and outreach program that offers guided educational tours and workshops.
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- North Coast Semaphore Grass maintenance and enhancement: mowing shrubbery, clearing ground debris and burn piles, and planting harvested seeds
- Invasive plant control: treatments include mowing, hand pulling, and tarping
- Install wildlife friendly fencing/elk crossings
- Upgrades to the wells and water distribution systems in preparation for future PSPS
- Install fencing to protect ash and oak plantings/weekly watering
- Secure and retrofit troughs with wildlife escape ramps
- Trash removal throughout project
- Review wildlife camera footage and document wildlife habits and movements
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MCRCD continues to promote environmental education, develop relationships with local schools, and recruit volunteers from the community. Our regular tours continued in 2019 with a total of 20 tours and 143 participants. Local schools also became involved, with two high school classes and one college class visiting the project. The students toured the mitigation lands as part of their coursework in biology, agriculture, and environmental restoration. The Peace and Environmental Club from the Willits High School also visited the site and participated in a bird survey tour. Our public tours focused on the elk population, wildlife biology, birds, wildflowers, and stream ecology. MCRCD organized a tour focused on grasses and wetland plants with participants from several agencies and organizations. A local radio station conducted an interview while touring the site and it was aired in the news the following week. A couple of volunteers helped with constructing and installing nesting boxes for Wood ducks, Western bluebirds, Tree swallows and Violet-green swallows.
MCRCD plans on expanding our education and outreach program in 2020. The staff interpreter has been meeting with local teachers in the elementary school and has begun planning a curriculum to bring students from grades K-8 out to participate in the scientific process of inquiry and exploration. The entire 3
rd
grade class is planning to visit in February of this year and we are looking forward to many people being involved with this. The focus will be on the characteristics of oak woodland habitats, created wetland habitats, and the open grassland and rangeland habitats.
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Learn more about our programs:
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