John Stephens
Napa Group Chair

It has been a busy year. We held outings, ski trips, and even a family river hike. We supported an outstanding school teacher in a tree planting restoration class project. We awarded the Earl Thollander Environmental Award to preservation pioneer, Harold Kelly, for his work over thirty years to protect agriculture from rampant development. We joined forces with the farmers to provide for Farmworker Housing and to develop a Green Label (friendly to fish) program. The Grand Jury urged the County to consider implementing the provisions our negotiated, trend setting agreement with Soscol Springs Vineyards that gave substantial setbacks from streams, wild life corridors, preserved tree groupings, and a 10 vine "hand weeding zone" along waterways.

We have written letters for environmental protections and also helped in placing Alston Park on the next ballot to protect it from development. We joined St. Helena's citizens in defending the City's woodland zoned areas from a vineyard conversion. We reported a toxic spill at Napa State Hospital and a deliberate toxic discharge into the municipal water supply by the City's own water treatment plant. (!) We supported Diane Dillon in her bid for County Board of Supervisors and we have quietly filed numerous appeals of State permits for water takings from creeks.

It seems we were not able to severely restrict the number of parcels at Stanly Ranch so now each of the 14 plots can host a vanity castle or a winery. Some people call it a winery mall. Also our efforts for streamside protections were met with hundreds of angry land owners at public hearings. Despite what you hear in the press, small holdings are exempt. People can remodel and add 750' extensions to their existing homes and setbacks will not lower property values. And the sky will not fall. The land is ours to do with what we want but the water running through it is a "public trust," owned by all of us. Once the water runs off our land our neighbor uses it until it may run into a municipal reservoir where you and I drink from it. We cannot over use it! so it dries up and kills the fish, another "public trust." We cannot add poisons to it, or add muddy runoff to it. As good neighbors, we must allow the water to flow through our property unharmed.