Tuesday, January 14, 2003
By CHRIS MALAN
People who lived in Napa 70-plus years ago swam and fished in the Napa River. Children frolicked along the lazy river with easy access. The Napa River is a natural resource that has been abused over the years by many. Cities dumped sewer, the tannery discharged bad chemicals, farmers diked and leveed up to the banks, dredging for shipping, and people built next to streams. Deforestation happened long ago due to early timber harvesting.
Today we have second-growth timber and now that is being deforested for hillside vineyards. The river, still confined to degrading levees, is severely down cutting, flooding frequently, and vastly over appropriated, depleting the river of enough fresh flow.
The valley floor (prime agricultural land) is mostly planted in winegrapes. Vineyard expansion into the hills is not farming sustainably when it involves permanent deforestation. Stripping hills causes compounding problems: water rushes down deforested slopes, streambank erosion, increased velocity causes hazardous flooding and incision which pushes more sediment into the San Francisco Bay.
While point source pollution (pipes discharging harmful chemicals like industrial waste) is regulated, thus decreasing some discharge into the river, non-point pollution (sheet flow coming off streets or agricultural runoff) is not currently regulated in Napa under the Clean Water Act. The river is listed as an impaired water body from sediment, pathogen and nutrients mostly from non-point pollution.
Stream setbacks efficiently create natural buffers and filters, minimizing pollution and decreasing floods. This pollution deters children from playing, swimming and fishing. Frankly, it is not acceptable to go along with this misuse of our river because it deprives us and future generations of our natural heritage. While I was able to swim in the rivers I grew up around, my children raised in Napa had to either trespass, fight the garbage at the Yountville Preserve or worry about what awful dirty water they would be drinking as they swam in few and forbidden isolated holes.
Recovery of the Napa River wherever feasible is vital. Striving to help our communities, I founded these projects with many thanks to: The Mennen Environmental Foundation, Giles W. and Elise G. Mead Foundation, Vintners Association, Fish and Wildlife Commission, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Foundation, State Water Resource, Rose Foundation.
* Napa River Watershed Historical Ecology Project -- opening at the Napa Museum January 2003. A project of Friends of the Napa River (collaboration with San Francisco Estuary Institute). A diverse data base, archives and maps of historical information is a historical treasure for the community.
* Benthic Macro Invertebrate Project: The first biological inventory of aquatic insects. There is astonishing first year results of bio-diversity. This five-year project will eventually be able to show how land use effects aquatic life. Also a rare and a new insect was collected.
* Napa River Restoration and Community Education Project: Takes watershed education into the third through fifth grade classrooms. The kids and teachers love this project because it brings watershed science into the classroom where kids can enjoy the lab experience of seeing aquatic insects, learn about rivers, groundwater and weather.
* Snorkel Survey for Steelhead: A two-year study successfully documenting the endangered specie, Steelhead are fast vanishing from our river. This fabulous project has now put this eclipsing animal on the record as a wild run of Steelhead (not hatchery) evenly distributed throughout the watershed. Before we documented their existence the resource agencies claimed that this seldom seen fish was a resident trout. Protecting this fish and improving water quality and quantity allows for humans to enjoy the same resource.
* FONR Symphony on the River: A celebration of the Napa River.
Others filed lawsuits after 10 years of noncompliance with environmental laws, lack of enforcing regulations and rampant disregard for the natural order of the environment. This is the only way to try to change harmful environmental practices out of control. CEQA is the legal tool to enforce environmental crimes. This tool is now helping all of us begin to try to clean up our river and save some precious resources. While some folks are highly offended and angry about this new way of doing business, others appreciate the more thoughtful, careful and reasonable development that it brings.
Because we are the only life in the universe that the Hubble telescope
can detect, all our life forces must be treasured.