Time to vote yes on Measure C

A letter to the editor - Napa Valley Register by Geoff Nelson

Sometimes lost in the debate about the controversial Measure C are the advantages of natural woodlands in both carbon sequestration (aka greenhouse gas reduction) and water quality.

In a woodland ecosystem, the soil has been protected for millennia from the large inherent fluctuations of temperature and the forces of water. When it is raining hard, you can stand on the forest floor and barely feel rain drops hitting you. The forest canopy is a buffer to rainfall intensity, and it moderates surface temperatures.

The thousands of years of organic matter accumulation can be up 12 inches thick, covering the soil. In contrast, vineyard soil is always exposed to both the sun's intensity and the occasional rain deluge, although a carefully cultivated ground cover helps.

Exposure means both erosion and high soil temperatures, which accelerates lots of processes, including decomposition rates and volatization of chemicals.

In addition, the excellence of native woodlands in carbon sequestration has been well researched, e.g., Williams et al. Carbon Balance and Management 2011, 6:11. (cbmjournal.com), and J. Environ. Qual. 35:1396–1404 (2006).

Even though Napa has been a leader in sustainability, we all feel the negative effects of the explosive growth. As a wine grower for 30 years, I feel it’s time for Yes on C.

Geoff Nelson

Napa

It’s time to get a grip on Napa's future

 

California’s water challenges are only going to get worse. More drought, more major rain events with flooding, and more uncertainty.

What we really need are new approaches and reasoned action to create a sustainable water supply - especially when the state is recommending tunnels to divert water to Santa Clara. How do we make sure we have enough for us?

When it comes to water: sustainability = survival.

We must invest in our future now. We must invest in our watersheds.

The least expensive and most effective means of increasing water supply and water security is to retain and protect our watersheds. Watersheds that supply over 60 percent of our city’s water demand and replenish our groundwater basin.

Healthy oak woodlands are able to absorb and store more rain water, releasing it slowly over weeks rather than hours.

Did you know that one new treatment plant is expected to cost $20 million? Why spend millions to build treatment plants or improve/expand reservoirs when we can do better by protecting water at its source. Water for residents, water for businesses, and water for agriculture.

Your investment in our future = Your Yes vote on Measure C.

Eve Kahn, chair

Get a Grip on Growth

Big business is telling us what to do

A letter to the editor - Napa Valley Register by Lucretia Marcus

Please allow me to preface my "Yes on C" letter with the following: we moved to Calistoga for many reasons.

Prime among them is how clean the elements are: air that you can't "see" or "smell", clean water, "traffic jams" consisting of four cars at an all way stop sign. The friendliness of those who live here is an added plus.

We ran from everything being politically related. Well, here we are again.

I'm asking that you read the article recently in the Register that tries to give both sides of the argument.

Let's look at the sides:

1) One has five times the amount of money to convince us that they are right.

2) One is crying that Yes on C would "allow" hundreds of acres of oaks to be cut down. Oh, the horror. A reminder: those are the exact number of acres left in the General Plan that was passed years ago.

3) Regarding that General Plan: only 41 percent of the land allowed to be planted under that agreement has been used. Why are the "No on C" folks fighting for more?

4) Suspiciously, no mention of ground water pollution or the draining of our watershed. Hmmm, could it be because their PR firm, so successful in defeating the ban GMO campaign, felt that those issues shouldn't be discussed?

The reality? This is big business that is fighting for control. This is big business wanting more: more profits/more control. Big business likes to tell us, the little people, what is "good" for us and we should just let them do it.

Just remember, big business exists to make money. What happens when they're done with this beautiful valley?

I really don't want to think about that. Do you?

Lucretia Marcus

Calistoga

Who benefits from opposing Measure C?

Why is the wine industry opposing Measure C, willing to spend half a million dollars and counting to defeat it? Measure C simply enhances the protection of our oak woodlands and the quality and quantity of our water. So why object?

It seems to come down to a business, a big business decision. If Measure C passes, vineyard expansion will be more difficult in Napa County.

Now, who might want and be able to plant those vineyards? Not the young family of modest income nor the small locally-owned wineries. Not with land in the valley ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars per acre. Not with the cost of planting a vineyard ranging from thirty to fifty thousand dollars per acre.

So who would want to plant those vineyards in the woodland watershed? Those who could afford to do so––the deep pockets of the wine industry. To a considerable extent those deep pockets belong to consortia and corporations with shareholders who generally reside outside of Napa County, even outside of the United States. They don’t participate in our community, drink our water, admire our hillsides.

The bottom line is that national and international companies would likely be the ones paying to cover the Mayacamas and Vaca mountains with vineyards, reducing the health and beauty of our county.

Over the past 50 years the Napa Valley has flourished largely due to the protection provided by the Agricultural Preserve and the passage of Measures J and P. The attorneys who drafted Measures J and P also wrote Measure C, which is a natural extension of these prior initiatives.

The buffer zones around streams and creeks, required by Measure C, have been shown to be essential for protecting water quality and for maximizing groundwater recharge. The moratorium on cutting down the oak woodlands, required by Measure C, further protects the quality and quantity of our water supply by distributing rainfall and preventing hillside erosion and runoff of silt, fertilizers and pesticides into creeks, streams and the Napa River.

So who benefits by opposing Measure C? The big business that is already buying our wineries, vineyards and brands, now poised to buy our woodlands and water for vineyard expansion. Don’t let this happen.

Support a sustainable Napa Valley. Vote for Measure C.

Jennifer Baerwald

Pope Valley

The 411 on 795 for Measure C

Letter to the Editor, May 16, 2018

Thanks, Measure C opponents, for your latest contribution to disingenuous mendacity. In your latest mailer, I see you have fixated on the 795-acre figure.

Maybe you forgot Measure C was written in cooperation with the Napa Valley Vintners. And you pretend not to know that oak woodland is now being cleared for vineyards at a rate that, by 2030 will add up to ...  795 acres.

So that number is basically yours, included to ensure the Vintners’ support. Which they then withdrew. The Measure C effort made this concession up front, and was repaid with an opposition campaign of obfuscation and deception.

Turning the 795-acre figure on its head and acting like Measure C favors oak woodland cutting is the latest of these. And without Measure C, what’s the number of cleared acres allowed?

Unlimited.

Shame on the No  on Measure C campaign. Vote 'yes' on Measure C.

Jeremy Wilder Fitch

Napa

Is Napa growing too much wine? Residents seek to preserve treasured land

As published in The Guardian.

The rise of Napa began with an upset. Warren Winiarski would know – his wine, a cabernet sauvignon, was a firm underdog at a legendary 1976 blind tasting in Paris, which pitted the best of France against the little-known California region.

His winery, Stag’s Leap, shocked the wine world by taking top honors. “It broke the glass ceiling that France had imposed on everyone,” he recalls. “People’s aspirations were liberated.”

Today Winiarski, 89, is speaking not of liberation, but of limits. A growing coalition of industry veterans and longtime residents fear that Napa has become a victim of its own success, pointing to the ecological transformation of the valley floor from dense oak woodland to a sea of vine-wrapped trellises. And they are posing a thorny question: has a unique agricultural region reached a tipping point at which agriculture itself becomes the threat?

Read the Guardian article here:

Sierra Club is for Measure C

A Letter to the Editor - St. Helena Star by Diane Shepp - Sierra Club Representative

Two opponents of Measure C have signed election documents representing themselves as “Sierra Club Member” and “Former Sierra Club Board Member” to which we take strong exception as attempts to mislead voters in the face of approval by the Sierra Club at all levels to endorse Measure C.

"Sierra Club has confidence in Napa County voters and calls upon our membership to join and vote YES on Measure C."

Read Diane's letter here: