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FireSmart Lake Sonoma

 

Summary

Sonoma Water is committed to continuing to improve our ability to respond and adapt to climate change.  As a water supply wholesaler, we are dependent on healthy watersheds for water supply reliability and clean drinking water to serve our communities.  Protection of our most important source water supply watershed is a central mission.  Managing the Lake Sonoma watershed for wildfire will help protect citizens and this vital water supply under changing climatic conditions. Lake Sonoma is the primary source of drinking water for over 600,000 residents of Sonoma and northern Marin counties. The 83,000-acre watershed that feeds Lake Sonoma consists of a mosaic of heavily forested lands, oak woodlands, chaparral, and grasslands and is largely privately owned. A lack of fire in the watershed combined with a gradual decline of grazing and a lack of forest management has led to high fuel loading and growing concerns of fire risk. A catastrophic wildfire could threaten the lives of residents attempting to flee along narrow roads, severely impact terrestrial ecosystems and aquatic habitat for endangered and threatened salmonids downstream, and contaminate drinking water for the region.

In May 2017, Ag Innovations and Sonoma Water applied to PG&E’s Resilient Communities Better Together Program to organize the landowners, organizations, tribes and public agencies who live and work in the Lake Sonoma watershed to explore strategies for fire resiliency in the watershed. The team conducted extensive outreach in the region and hosted four workshops in the Lake Sonoma watershed to share information, concerns, ideas, and priorities and build capacity to tackle action to meet our challenges.

Lead Agency and Partnerships

Ag Innovations, a nonprofit organization that focuses on facilitation of strategic conversations related to agriculture, communities, and ecosystems, served as the grantee, co-convener and workshop facilitators.   The role of Sonoma Water is:

  • Project Convener: Lead agency convening key partners and experts
  • Content Expertise: Water supply, storage, quality, wildlife habitat, land use, data/mapping
  • Communications: Design and production of public/final materials and reports
  • Public Relations and Other Support: Providing access to Water Agency stakeholder relationships, use of meeting space, vehicle use, mapping and graphics, public relations and technical expertise and related materials, and other related project support.

Ag Innovations and Sonoma Water worked closely together to vet, invite and convene stakeholders with the intent of building an effective collaborative process with outcomes developed through collaborative input.  Long-standing partnerships were strengthened and new partnerships were forged as part of engaging around climate adaptation from a source water protection objective.  Some non-traditional partnerships were also forged between water agencies, fire prevention and first responders, tribal members, forest conservation working groups and rural benefit associations.  Other partners included CAL FIRE, local fire districts, the Sonoma County Agriculture and Open Space District, Sonoma County Office of Recovery and Resiliency, the US Army Corps of Engineers who owns the lands directly adjacent to Lake Sonoma, Sonoma Resource Conservation District, Mendocino County Resource Conservation District, Fire Safe Sonoma, UC Cooperative Extension, Audubon Canyon Ranch, local tribes, Yorkville Community Benefit Association and others.

Drivers

One of Sonoma Water’s primary responsibilities is water supply.  Protection of the source watersheds (water supply and water quality) are of critical importance.  Sonoma Water is a regional leader in water management, natural resources climate mitigation through its carbon free water program, and adaptation since initiating a climate adaptation planning process in 2015. In May 2017, Sonoma Water partnered with Ag Innovations to apply for funding to engage landowners in the Lake Sonoma watershed through PG&E’s Resilient Communities Better Together Program. Shortly after the fires of October 2017, the team was awarded funding.

Engagement Process

Stakeholder composition included property owners, residents, business owners, land managers (public and private), elected officials and policy makers, tribal representatives, first responders, and community organizations. Organizations included: CAL FIRE; Geyserville Fire Protection District, Sonoma County Fire & Emergency Services, several local planning departments and commissions; Resource Conservation Districts in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties; US Army Corps of Engineers; Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation & Open Space District; Sonoma County Office of Recovery and Resiliency; Fire Safe Sonoma; UC Cooperative Extension; Audubon Canyon Ranch; and Center for Social and Environmental Stewardship, Yorkville Community Benefits Association and Friends of Lake Sonoma.

Landowners representing approximately half of the acreage in the watershed participated in one or more workshops.  Landowners and residents included vulnerable populations, such as elderly, infirmed, low-income, with many landowners living in remote, rural areas (isolated) and often raising livestock with lifestyles very tied to 24/7 animal husbandry with special needs and access (evacuation) requirements. 

Outreach and engagement took the form of a 6-step process.

  1. First, the team interviewed over 40 stakeholders in the region, including federal, state, and local resource agencies; local governments; non-profit organizations; homeowners associations; landowners and land managers; and tribes. Stakeholders were asked what they were already doing about wildfire, what their concerns were, and what they would like to see happen in their region. The team worked to get to know issues specific to this community, including social and community dynamics that might influence the process and identify any potential local champions or known connectors who could help bring people to the table.
  2. Second, mailers inviting landowners and other partners were sent to all parcels in the watershed.
  3. Third, team members attended community events and posted flyers and sandwich boards at local markets, mailboxes, and ice cream socials.
  4.  Fourth, participants filled out pre-workshop surveys to determine their interests, level of understanding of related issues, and particular concerns or “no go” options.
  5. Finally, workshops were formatted in terms of seating arrangement, discussion questions, and interactive activities to ensure that participants were invited to participate fully in discussions. The team felt that it was imperative to avoid a speaker-audience dynamic and instead opted for short presentations with enough information to prompt an informed discussion with experts in the room to provide technical information as issues arose. The overall effect was to treat landowners as experts on equal standing with presenters in the room and allow plenty of time for discussion and brainstorming. Workshops included site visits to a local property to explore home hardening, defensible space, and landscape-scale management options.
  6. After completion of the workshops, outreach continued through an email group to alert participants and partners to share information, notice upcoming events, promote stakeholder communications within these newly formed partnerships in the Lake Sonoma watershed and the region as a whole.

The project continued through a series of jumpstart workshops that were designed to boost efforts in neighboring watersheds. The team led three workshops in Mendocino County (Hopland, Russian River watershed), Napa County (Napa River watershed), and lower Dry Creek (Sonoma County downstream of Lake Sonoma) to help bolster local efforts to form Fire Safe Councils, pursue Community Wildfire Protection Plans, and learn pile burning and biochar techniques. In all cases, FireSmart worked with the RCDs, Fire Safe Councils, local fire districts, and local champions to identify the stakeholders needed to increase the pace and scale of fire resiliency.

Climate Impact Area

The project responds to various climate impacts such as drought, flood, vegetation and habitat changes, changing fire regimes (increased wildfire intensity and frequency), infrastructure loss, and public safety concerns by bringing stakeholders together on common ground.  Organizers have identified communication networks, community culture, and built social capital and trust.  The project developed a list of short and long term actions that can be tackled individually by each property owner or collectively by various groups of stakeholders.  

Reducing catastrophic wildfire reduces greenhouse gas emissions.  This project addresses several climate impact areas, including increasing wildfire risks; stresses to water supplies due to drought, extreme precipitation, and fire; altered vegetation communities; impacts to infrastructure; and public safety concerns. In order to address these concerns, the project brought stakeholders with a wide variety of interests together to seek common ground and look for win-win opportunities to work together. The effort identified existing communication networks and socio-political and cultural considerations to help build social capital and trust in preparation for future action. Together, stakeholders helped project partners develop a list of short- and long-term actions that can be pursued at multiple scales, from the property scale up to the regional scale. Some actions may be accomplished by individual landowners and some require collective action by various groups of stakeholders. In addition to addressing the climate impact areas previously listed, reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions over time.

Funding Source

Project funding came from three sources:  1) Resilient Communities grant funds from PG&E of $100,000, 2) in-kind funding from Sonoma Water, Geyserville Fire Protection District, Anderson Valley Fire Department, CalFire, Fire Safe Sonoma, Sonoma Resource Conservation District, Mendocino County Resource Conservation District and other partners, and 3) volunteer time from private landowners to host workshops and site visits.   

Research and Data

Data resources:

  • CAL FIRE:FRAP Vegetation data (http://frap.fire.ca.gov/data/frapgisdata-sw-LCMMP_download)
  • CAL FIRE: Fire Threat data (http://frap.fire.ca.gov/data/frapgisdata-sw-firethreat_download)
  • CAL FIRE: Fire Perimeters data (http://frap.fire.ca.gov/data/frapgismaps/frapgismaps-fire_perimeters_download)
  • Sonoma County Vegetation Mapping and Lidar Program (http://sonomavegmap.org/)

Challenges

One major challenge facing this project was determining how to discuss fire hazards and fire prevention with communities that may feel trauma after the devastating October 2017 wildfires. Anticipating these challenges, we worked with the grantor on timing of the project and expanding the breadth of preparatory and preliminary discussions to develop an effective and sensitive approach to meeting needs, convening stakeholders, and developing resources. We expanded our pre-workshop timeframe to accommodate more interviews and hold additional briefings and meetings with stakeholders to more fully understand the perspectives of and sensitivities of stakeholders. This enabled us to determine a sensitive pathway to communicate about climate adaptation and fire, and forge collaborative solutions.

Outcomes

Project Outcomes:

  1. Research and data for Lake Sonoma, including several maps (fire threat/hazard, vegetation types, landownership, map of roads and major infrastructure/facilities)
  2. Increased stakeholder awareness of fire hazards and common sources of ignition as well as effective home hardening, defensible space, and landscape-scale fuels management techniques and available resources to help accomplish their goals
  3. Establishment of relationships and rapport, developing communication lines and learning community culture and structure
  4. Willingness of landowners to engage with agencies and first responders to take action.  Keen interest identified by many to partner and work together to build resiliency. 
  5. Increased communication and cooperation for future action.  Community leaders, communication hubs and early adopters were identified. 
  6. Identification of potential actions to take in the watershed to reduce fire risk.

Project Deliverables:

  1. Four day-long workshops in the Lake Sonoma watershed
  2. Set of Summary Workshop Notes on Building Resiliency and Recommendations for future action
  3. List of recommendations for near-term and long-term action for resiliency
  4. Replicable methodology for conducting these workshops
  5. Three mini-workshops (or labs) in other communities (to share methods and jump-start dialog and action)

Next Steps:

  1. Build capacity in the watershed through cross-sector partnerships to leverage the strengths of our various partners.
  2. Pursue grant funding for planning and implementation of fire resiliency work to reduce risks to the landscape, the communities within it, and the water that it supplies. In December 2018, Sonoma Water teamed up with Geyserville Fire Protection District, Sonoma County Transportation and Public Works, UC Cooperative Extension, Fire Safe Sonoma, and the Center for Social and Environmental Stewardship to submit a grant application to CAL FIRE for work in the watershed. In Spring of 2019, CAL FIRE awarded our project team over $540,000 to pursue two Community Wildfire Protection Plans, home inspections, defensible space demonstration projects, roadside clearing along 30 miles of county roads, community outreach and education, and a tool to help landowners estimate costs for landscape-scale management options. Implementation is set to begin in early 2020.

Replicability

  • The approach to outreach and methods of convening stakeholders, performing outreach and gathering stakeholders are replicable and, as part of project, these aspects were replicated in miniworkshops to assist other communities to convene and develop accords, action plans for collaborative resilience projects. 
  • Considerable time was needed to engage stakeholders, especially on a new topic such as fire preparedness and fire adaptation and bring community together on these issues in new ways they have not convened before.  A series of stepped interviews took time to plan, schedule, arrange and conduct and were stepped and branched out to wider network based on interviewee suggestions and team learning on topic and social composition and dynamics. Make sure your timeline and scope of work includes considerable upfront work to listen to the community one a one-on-one or small group basis before convening workshops. 
  • Community members often relate more directly to practical hubs (nearby cities or services) rather than watersheds, even in rural areas.  We found that property owners related more keenly and directly to roads they used (especially in rural areas) rather than hydrologic watershed.  Although most who are rural and landbased have a strong and traditional knowledge based on their creek networks and watersheds that they live in, for fire adaptation and working together with their neighbors, the idea of a ‘roadshed’ resonated more significantly in terms of the practicality of helping each other, connecting to one another, and access or evacuation routes.   

Additional Resources

http://www.aginnovations.org/project/FiresmartLakeSonoma

Related Online Resources:

State-wide, Nation-wide:

 

Sonoma County:

Further Information

Co- Project Managers: Anne Crealock  (707) 547- 1948,  Susan Haydon (707) 547-1937

Lead Facilitator: Genevieve Taylor with Ag Innovations  (707) 823-6111

Anne.Crealock@scwa.ca.gov, Susan.Haydon@scwa.ca.gov, genevieve@aginnovations.org