Report from Phillip Blake to the Napa County Planning Commission

1303 Jefferson St.
Suite 500B
Napa, CA 94559

September 25, 2002

Napa County Planning Commission 1195 Third St.
Napa, Ca 94559

Re: Napa County Code- Revision of Stream Setbacks and Related Provisions of the Napa County Conservation Regulations Ordinance

Good Morning. My name is Phill Blake, and I am with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Napa County. For those of you not familiar with us, the NRCS is a non-regulatory federal agency providing consultation, funding, and other services to promote conservation and sustainable land use on private lands. We provide these services through our close working relationship with the Napa County Resource Conservation District.

I appreciate the opportunity to address the commission on this very important topic of stream setbacks. I have been working with you on this and other issues related to the restoration of Napa County watersheds for about 20 years now. I feel it is important to express that as an advisor to the Napa River Watershed Task Force and to the technical oversight committee, I am not attempting to break ranks with this deliberative process of revising the conservation regulations. I have a great deal of respect for the commission, its staff, and am optimistic that the consensus process we are engaged in will result in a healthier Napa River watershed. With that end in mind, I submitted to you several weeks ago written comments on this issue, and recommendations for an alternative method of determining appropriate setback distances.

The alternative stream setback proposal I submitted is based on an NRCS, California conservation practice standard entitled "Riparian Forest Buffer". I would like to further submit to the commission today, a diagrammatic sheet that illustrates how this method is used, and why it is important to calculate these distances based on the site-specific stream-geomorphic setting and environment. Without going into great detail, unless you have questions, I'd like to leave you this information and indicate that I look forward to working with you, your staff, and the oversight committee on development of a reasonable, science-based system for setbacks.

I'd also like to observe that we have made great strides in managing and protecting the health and natural values of the Napa River watershed over the past 15 years or so. It was ironic for instance that several years ago, as we announced that we had reduced soil erosion rates by over 70% in Napa County, following passage of the county's 1991 Conservation Regulations, the county was defending its regulations in court, and I was having to defend my figures. We are now revisiting the regulations on a number of different levels, and I think that is appropriate, because we can do a better job of addressing the environment more holistically.

I am here today also to proclaim to you that Chicken Little was wrong. The sky is not falling on the Napa River watershed. We are making great strides in improving our streamside riparian areas and instituting sustainable land management practices that are having a significant effect on improving the environment, while allowing for reasonable use of the land. Over the past five years, millions of dollars have been spent by private landowners and the wine industry to restore native vegetation, habitat, fish migration passage, and shade to cool the waters of our stream environs in Napa County. Through the Napa Sustainable Winegrowing Group, RCD and NRCS, land stewardship groups, and the Napa Conservation Information Group, and others, several tours a year are held to highlight this work and advance the technology of restoration. Behind the scenes, landowners are using this information, and in many cases are voluntarily setting back from streams and restoring habitat, without a regulatory trigger. They are doing it because they are convinced that it is the right thing to do, when given reasonable alternatives and incentives.

Many of the conservation issues we are dealing with in the watershed are the result of decades of land use management, and modification of natural drainage and streamflow processes. We will not turn these factors around overnight, and unfortunately, because we occupy and use the land, we will not restore this watershed completely to pre-human settlement conditions. The term I like to use to describe our restoration focus is "managed natural ecosystem". We are not dealing with a pristine environment, and because we occupy the land, we must retain the ability to manage our natural environs. If left to their own, our streams will do what they do naturally, and traverse across the landscape as erosion and streamflow processes respond to rainfall and runoff . These natural processes do not respect setback and "no-touch" zones, and must be managed to protect the use of the land and preserve stream habitat values. It's the reality we deal with, and our regulatory processes have to account for it as we think about how we achieve protection of riparian functions and values.

I'd like to close with the thought that some amount of regulation serves as a reminder of our responsibility to sustain the environment, while onerous regulation extinguishes incentives for property owners to restore the land. I look forward to working with you on that challenge.