NapaNews.com

Effort could renew river's original course

Monday, December 20, 2004

By GABE FRIEDMAN
Register Staff Writer

As it runs through Rutherford, the Napa River will never take the meandering path it followed years ago, when it made wider turns and had several channels. But a massive restoration effort could create a 4.5-mile stretch of river that mimics historical conditions.

The effort, organized by grapegrowers and others in the Rutherford Dust Society, is expected to take several years and will require some landowners to give up valuable vineyard property to let the river run its course.

"For years and years, landowners have been working just on their own to fix their part of their river," said Dave Pina, who is president of the Rutherford Dust Society and whose vineyard management company farms two properties in Rutherford. In that time, he said, "they've actually done more harm" than good.

The restoration project is being funded through a partnership between several government agencies and the landowners in the Rutherford sub-appellation.


Land giving way to erosion

Problems for the Napa River's mainstem started 50 years ago when levees were built to straighten the river and flood plains along the river were filled in, according to property owners, scientists and others. In many cases, this land has been planted with grapevines.

Pina said the Rutherford Dust Restoration Team plans to hold three meetings with landowners to get the project going.

First, owners will meet with the environmental engineers designing the plan to see what would be an ideal restoration for the river. Second, the landowners will give feedback and address how much land they're willing to give up. Third, the landowners and the engineers will reach final decisions.

Currently, the team is preparing to hire a contractor to design a restoration plan.

Andy Beckstoffer, who helped found the Rutherford Dust Society and owns more than 1,000 acres of Napa County vineyards, said that enough discussions have been held to inform landowners that they're going to need to give up some land. Erosion along the riverbanks, he said, is already costing them land.

But the restoration team is not trying to create an exact replica of the river as it was half a century ago.

"It would be a little short-sighted to think that we could exactly recreate what was historically here," said Jonathan Koehler, a fisheries biologist with the Napa County Resources Conservation District. "We're here now. We don't expect people to move out so the Napa River can retrace its historical course."

In parts of Rutherford, the Napa River passes by gradually sloping banks abutting verdant vineyards. The slow moving pools of water allow non-native predatory fish such as bass and pike minnow to prey on native fish, such as salmon and steelhead.

In other places, the river's banks are so steep and littered with debris that it appears to be little more than a trickling stream passing through a ditch.

In many areas along the stream bank, invasive plants, such as Himalayan blackberry bushes, have all but crowded out native species and are blamed for transporting pests carrying disease into nearby vineyards.

As property owners have used heavy rock bundles, rip rap and dirt berm levees to shore up their portions of the banks, the fixes have sometimes caused erosion further downstream.

"Part of our stretch is in really good shape," said Pina. "The worst part is north of the Rutherford bridge, where there's levees on both sides."

Biologists say that Pina and Beckstoffer are correct when they point out the 4.5-mile restoration through Rutherford will be most effective if other projects around the rest of the Napa River begin.

In stretches such as the creek behind Vintage High School, for example, residents have reported seeing salmon struggling to wade through the river this year without getting caught in the trash in the stream.

"Our whole motto is 'It's voluntary,'" said Koehler. "We'll tell you what you need to do to get fish back and it's up to you whether you want to do it."

Meanwhile, the Rutherford project is generating enthusiasm.

"It's pretty cool to think about what's going to be happening here with salmon in 20 years or more," Koehler said. "The landowners, I think, realize they're going to lose land and they would rather that happen in a controlled fashion -- rather than come out on a cold night and find out that they lost a third of an acre."