California Coast & Ocean

Chaparral Spring to Enhance Mount Diablo Protection
Protecting the unique habitats of Mount Diablo and the surrounding wildlands has long been a focus of the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD), especially where it is possible to preserve wildlife corridors through large areas. The 333-acre Chaparral Spring property lies between EBRPD's 1,030-acre Clayton Ranch to the east and Mount Diablo State Park to the south. With its diverse habitats and shared borders with other parkland, it was a prime target for addition to the wildlife, open space, and recreational corridor between the State Park and the EBRPD-owned Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve.

The Conservancy's approval of $1.4 million in Proposition 84 funds to the EBRPD will enable the district to purchase the property from the nonprofit Save Mount Diablo (SMD), which bought Chaparral Spring in 1994, using private funds, with the intent of transferring it to a public agency for management. Chaparral Spring will be combined with the Clayton Ranch to form a new regional preserve focused on wildlife corridors and trail networks. SMD also secured an agricultural easement that allows limited grazing over 150 acres, which EBRPD likely will continue to lease to a local rancher.

Chaparral Spring includes the saddle between Mount Diablo and Black Diamond Mines, the divide between the Marsh Creek and Mount Diablo Creek watersheds, with many canyons and dramatic views from the higher elevations. The property has grassland, oak savannah, blue oak woodland, chaparral, broadleaf evergreen forest, deciduous forest, ponds, and riparian corridor habitats. Wildlife there includes 17 special status species--California tiger salamanders, Alameda whipsnakes, Cooper's hawks, sharp-shinned hawks, and golden eagles among them--as well as rare plant species, including two endemics, the Mount Diablo sunflower and the Mount Diablo globe lily.

New Napa Park
A new regional park will be created in central Napa County, east of St. Helena, with trails, campsites and cabins or yurts, a swimming pool, and many miles of multiuse trails. To make this park possible, the Conservancy approved $1.65 million in Proposition 84 funds toward the purchase of the 673-acre Moore Creek property, adjacent to the City of Napa's Lake Hennessey watershed property. The Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District and Napa County will provide the remainder of the $3.38 million needed to acquire the property and to plan and implement public access improvements.

This land is centrally located and well-suited for recreational uses. More than two miles of Moore Creek (a major tributary of Lake Hennessey, primary water supply for the City of Napa) runs through and along the border of the property, and the acquisition will open up public access to the north side of the Lake. It will also leave only a 4,000-foot gap in public and land trust-owned properties in the 25 miles between Lake Hennessey and Mount St. Helena, and will enable the creation of almost a fourth of the long-planned Napa Crest Trail, which would eventually encircle Napa Valley.

The Moore Creek property also has notable biodiversity, with a mix of oak woodland, coniferous forest, chaparral, grassland, and riparian habitats, and the benefits from being adjacent to large areas that are protected by conservation easements.

About 200 acres of grassland will continue to be grazed, but cattle will be kept away from the creek and prevented from overgrazing, to keep the land from being degraded.