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Wetland-Friendly Farming in the North Bay
Green velvet on duck heads; sunlight on grape leaves; hay waves, dozing dairy herds, long grasses tossed by Bay waters - these are all images from a new film on the San Pablo Baylands. The film premiered this October before a crowd of 250 local citizens, decisionmakers and press, marking the passing of another milestone in Save the Bay's partnership program to promote wetland and wildlife-friendly stewardship of the Bay's four-county, 50,000-acre northern fringe.
"The film paints a picture of a land nobody knows about, the Bay Area's last, vast expanse of open space, wildlife habitat and agriculture," says the S.F. Bay Commission's Jeff Blanchfield, whose agency is spearheading another of the four major wetland protection programs that have zeroed in on the North Bay in recent years. "It's absolutely wonderful, we've already shown it to our commissioners," he says.
Accompanying the film is a 12-page overview of the history and value of the San Pablo Baylands, and of options for protecting both its family farms and natural resources. This overview, and the more detailed forthcoming report it previews, is the product of 18 months of workshops and steering committee meetings with landowners from the region, ranging from individual farmers to state and federal agencies that own and manage area wildlife refuges. According to Save the Bay's Marc Holmes, his Partnership for San Pablo Baylands is different from the North Bay's other wetland-targeted efforts because it has acknowledged the need to protect agriculture, as well as wetlands, from the get go, and because it is working with landowners outside the regulatory arena to make them "the guiding body" for future protection efforts.
"So much is coming down here so fast we don't know who to trust," says farmer Norm Yenni. "Save the Bay's doing the best job it can without a regulatory approach."
Holmes points out that more than half of San Pablo Bay's diked wetlands are unprotected and vulnerable to development, particularly along the Highway 101 corridor where cities like Novato have a "disinclination" to preserve them. Imminent threats include a proposed doubling in size of the Bel Marin Keyes lagoon community, and a planned 18-hole golf course at Black Point. But no one's going to accept the same kind of government intervention used to create the South Bay's large refuges and the Suisun Marsh protection plan, says Holmes, nor are public dollars available in the astronomical amounts needed to replicate that approach today in the North Bay.
"We can't purchase or regulate urbanization out of the area," says Holmes. "Our best hope is sound stewardship by the landowners themselves."
According to the plan overview, such stewardship may take the form of voluntary best management practices by farmers such as vineyard cover crops to prevent erosion, integrated pest management to minimize chemical runoff, bird boxes to shelter songbirds, deer fences allowing mammal migration, composting to enhance soil fertility, and or conservation easements, tax incentives and management agreements that promote on-farm wetland protection.
One best management approach that would greatly benefit wildlife would be a shift from winter to summer cropping. "If farmers could switch from dry farming to irrigation they could grow summer crops, freeing up land to operate as seasonal wetlands in winter," says Holmes. What crops, water sources and fertilizers could be used for such changes are things Holmes hopes to see researched on a model farm proposed as part of the stewardship program.
"I'd like to know if we can get the soil right to grow grapes or asparagus on tidelands - asparagus is pretty good money," says Yenni. "An experimental farm could help answer these questions."
So farmers like Yenni don't have to shoulder the risks of experimenting, Save the Bay is proposing the model farm be located on public lands. Skaggs Island, proposed for acquisition by U.S. Fish and Wildlife, is one possible location. According to Fish & Wildlife's Betsy Radtke, her agency can use a special use permit to allow farmers to develop farming techniques on the island that are both beneficial to wildlife and specific to the unique conditions of the North Bay - "techniques they can then take home and use on their home farms," she says. "It would be a good use of this property until it can be restored to wildlife habitat."
The model farm, education programs (see Canoeing the Sloughs), and a new organization and clearinghouse for stewardship efforts are the centerpieces of Save the Bay's program - now being considered for CALFED funding. Despite a worthy vision and excellent film, the real long-term benefits and products of the $500,000 program remain unclear.
But the farmers and landowners are still at the table, points out Radtke, who serves on the partnership's steering committee. "We still haven't gotten to implementation, and that's the big test," she says.
Landowners like Yenni are worried that no matter how good the stewardship efforts are, regulators such as the Bay Commission will eventually take over. But the Commission's Blanchfield insists his agency has no such authority. Meanwhile other landowners worry that even a stewardship approach is too limiting. "We don't want to be locked into farming for eternity," says rancher Jim Haire.
"The good thing about the plan is it's a tool box - you can pick and chose what to use," says Yenni. "I think you'll see some people using it in time. Politically, we're going to have to in order to get by."
Contact: Marc Holmes (510)452-9261
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