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
You Would Think
Here’s what we think. If you value clean water, clean air, and good quality of life, then you should vote for Measure C. If you like being lied to, enjoy sitting in traffic on Highway 29, and don’t mind seeing this valley run for the express benefit of political and economic elite, then by all means vote against it.
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
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."
Vintners and Growers support YES on Measure C
Should significant money from vineyard and winery organizations, or the voice of citizens, win this battle for our watershed?
Rights require responsibility – Yes on C.
Letter to the Editor - Napa Valley Register by Andy Beckstoffer
The anti-conservation forces are declaring that the Measure C protection of watersheds is an assault to their property rights. It is not; it is a normal and expected outcome of increasing density of development.
In the early days of populating an area, the impact of one person is typically negligible, and so there are few formal restrictions. As an area becomes more populated, two things happen.
First, there are irresponsible people who do things on their land that have negative impacts on neighbors and downstream. Whether carving up a mountain such that it washes into the river, polluting, or creating problems with neighbors, rules are created to make it clear that irresponsible behavior is not allowed.
Of greater significance is the aggregate impact of development when an area attracts many landowners to deforest, build facilities, and scrape the land of natural vegetation. The aggregate and cumulative impact of development has harmful effects for neighbors and downstream communities, even if each individual adheres to a "best practice" approach.
That was resoundingly demonstrated in the Dunne report of 2001. As density increases, the cumulative impact becomes significant, and each landowner has to adhere to increasingly stringent rules to prevent permanent harm to the environment and its citizens. Even the first guy, who operated under no rules and was responsible, has to adhere to the rules that protect everybody. The same rules for everybody.
Is this stealing property rights? No. Nobody has unlimited sovereign rights. In general, you can do with your property as you please, unless it negatively impacts others. You can’t build a rock concert venue down a two-lane road deep in a canyon and you can’t operate a mercury mine (any more).
You can’t light a bonfire in windy dry weather. In Los Angeles in the 1950s, dry trash was burned in incinerators in back yards. The cumulative impact was horrid smog, so it was made illegal to possess an incinerator.
Was this an infringement on property rights? Not at all. It was acknowledgment that with increasing population density, this was a pretty stupid thing to do.
The flip side of the “rights” argument is “responsibility.” Acknowledge that Napa today is not the Napa of 1970. The volume and density of development – agriculture and "hospitality" - is having cumulative impact on the county, and we will have to create rules that protect the environment and communities from the cumulative impact of individually responsible operations.
Property rights are not absolute or infinite. What you can do with your property has always been with consideration to the impact on others. You are part of a community.
Which brings us back to Measure C. It is up to the citizens of our community to pass the initiative that will assure a healthy environment for all of Napa County’s current and future generations. Please join me in voting 'yes' on Measure C.
Andy Beckstoffer
St. Helena
Action now on water
Letter to the Editor - Napa Valley Register by Charlie Toldeo
"Napa County cannot wait another week or years to start being proactive. What we are in the midst of is a major statewide water crisis. If the general public knew how critical the local water situation is, they would be very angry that the legislators have failed the public at such critical junctures."
Initiative process is healthy for democracy.
Letter to the Editor - Napa Valley Register by Kathy Felch.
"The initiative process is a healthy one and must be used when our government does not provide for the public good. Our local government’s lack of respect for welfare of the citizens of this county has led in large part to the emergence of these two initiatives."