Nine miles of protected lands
Latest acquisition completes the Northern Crescent

The view from the south end of the newly acquired Renteria property
shows its relationship to the slough and much of the nine-mile corridor
of protected lands stretching from the uplands to the bay.

Standing on the ridge of ESF’s latest acquisition, you can see all the way to the Monterey Peninsula. Turn around and you are looking at the ridge that runs from the North end of Elkhorn Slough, two miles inland along Carneros Creek. We didn’t buy the 100-acre property for the view – we bought it because it connects thousands of acres of protected land and creates a nine-mile stretch running from the rige tops to the Monterey Bay (map, below).

Five years ago the Elkhorn Slough Foundation identified this ridge as one of its top land acquisition priorities. In December we acquired the keystone piece in this arch of land, a 100-acre strip of land that links a 2.5 mile swath of protected land along this ridge. Big pieces of protected lands are important habitats for roaming animals like bobcats. In early January our staff photographer, Greg Hofmann, got close enough to one of these elusive creatures to get the photo on page six.
In our 1999 Watershed Conservation Plan, this ridge was called the Northern Crescent. It was a priority for conservation because it was a major source of soil erosion, one of the biggest threats to the long term health of the slough. The many small farms along this ridge drain into Carneros Creek, which supplies the bulk of the slough’s fresh water. Improper cultivation on steep slopes results in staggering erosion rates – up to 33 tons per acre per year.

The Renteria property, shown in red,
is the keystone of the Northern Crescent.

Protection of this ridge began in 1991 when The Nature Conservancy acquired the Azevedo and Blohm ranches at the western end (600 acres). Over the last four years a string of acquisitions protected another 900 acres along this ridge line: Triple M (196 acres) in 2000, Elzas (134 acres) in 2001, El Chamisal (201 acres) and Brothers (356 acres) in 2002. The two blocks of land (The Nature Conservancy’s 600 acres and ESF’s 900 acres) were separated by just a few hundred yards, which made the Renteria property the keystone in the arch

We worked with the Renteria family, who owned the land, to close the gap between these two blocks. The Renteria property includes 47 acres of oak woodlands, 27 acres of maritime chaparral, and 17 acres of fallow fields. Since the 1980s this property has been cultivated in strawberries, much of it on slopes exceeding 20%. The result was the erosion of sediment and chemicals into Carneros Creek, which supplies 70% of the fresh water into Elkhorn Slough. Funding for the $775,000 acquisition came from the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Even before escrow closed, our land staff began work recontouring gullies and planting a winter cover crop on the property – steps that held up well in the heavy rains that followed. In time, the expansion of natural vegetative cover will also increase rainfall absorption into the water table and thus help address North Monterey County’s groundwater overdraft.

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Investing in farming –
and the environment
Erosion control, organic farming, and even
flowers for our members!

Two years ago ESF bought the Hambey Ranch and committed itself to continue farming 45 acres then under cultivation. Like most fields in the Elkhorn Highlands, the fields at Hambey were sloped, which means they are prone to erosion during winter rains. The Watershed Conservation Plan which guides our work identified soil erosion as a major threat to Elkhorn Slough and one of the reasons for acquiring land in these hills is to reduce that erosion. Some slopes are just too steep to farm without producing the alarming rates of erosion that threaten the health of the slough.

To honor the leasee we inherited and to ensure protection of water quality, we have invested heavily in erosion control over the past two years – so that we can continue to lease land to farmers and protect the health of the slough.

Our investment paying off: the underground pipe we laid this year
sends storm runoff down drainage channels to sediment basins
we built last year.

The first year we built three sediment basins and 600 feet of drainage channels. The rains in 2003 showed that these structures generally worked, but needed improvements. This fall we made improvements, including building an underground pipe and a new series of mini-catch basins. The early winter rains this year showed that this new system worked – and that there were still improvements to be made. The picture below gives you a good idea of the volume of water and sediment we’re dealing with.

ESF has also been investing in farming on the Brothers Ranch, which we acquired three years ago. We have allowed fallowed fields to stand for three years – and will convert 20 acres into organic fields. Triple M Ranch next door is now all organic. ESF helped ALBA (Agricultural Land Based Training Association) acquire the ranch in 2000 by paying for a preservation agreement that keeps part of the land in farming and the rest undeveloped.

ESF members who have been on our annual spring walk at Brothers will also be glad to hear that our land staff is doing some work on the abandoned flower field – so our members can pick flowers at the end of the walk!

The bottom line for all this work is to demonstrate the compatibility of well-managed farms and environmental protection. Working together, we are creating a new trajectory for the future.

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"The protection of Elkhorn Slough
will never be done"
An interview with ESF Executive Director
Mark Silberstein

Our Executive Director, Mark Silberstein, has worked for 25 years to protect Elkhorn Slough. People inevitably comment on his passionate commitment to the place he calls, only partly in jest, “the cosmic center of the universe.” We sat down with him early in 2005 to talk about the grand project he has worked on for decades – and about plans for the year ahead.

If someone had said to you 25 years ago that Elkhorn Slough would be as protected as it is today – what would you have thought?

That they were crazy – and that we had to do it! This is an extraordinary place. Within this small 45,000-acre watershed we have a tremendous diversity of life: hills, ridges, streams, marsh, and one of the great estuaries in the state. California’s estuaries are 90% gone, and this is one of the last remaining ones – which makes it rare and important. We have over 340 species of birds, 100 species of fish, rare plant communities like maritime chaparral on the ridgetops, and one of the states’ largest tracts of salt marsh.

And we have intensive human use: the largest power plant in California, the major north/south rail artery in the state, and Moss Landing harbor, which leads the state in tons of fish landed. We have farming, both on Springfield Terrace and in the hills above Elkhorn Slough. We have housing. And we have three major research facilities – the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the Moss Landing Marine Labs, and the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, one of just 27 national estuarine research reserves in the entire country.

It is an amazing concentration of natural resources and human activity. The idea that we can protect these natural resources amidst all this human activity – well, that probably would have seemed crazy 25 years ago, but it’s also absolutely necessary.

Mark and his twin sons, Josh and Ian.