Wetlands Edge Park in American Canyon is a local environmental sanctuary for humans and wildlife alike. It's also the place that inspired Watershed Explorers, a youth environmental education program recently created by America Canyon Community & Parks Foundation (ACCPF) and Napa RCD's education team.

Watershed Explorers (WE) engages fourth and fifth grade students at American Canyon elementary schools in hands-on learning about healthy ecosystems, water quality, plant and animal lifecycles, human history in the region, and human impacts on our surrounding environment. Students explore these topics through a series of class visits and field trips at Wetlands Edge Park and sites in the upper watershed.

Slated to begin in Spring 2020, the original pilot of WE was abruptly halted by the pandemic after one class presentation. How did we pivot? ACCPF, Napa RCD, and program partners including the City of American Canyon, American Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant, Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District, and Suscol Intertribal Council collaborated to provide a virtual experience of Watershed Explorers for students. As a result, the Watershed Explorers Google Site was created!

And don't forget that our friends at ACCPF are hosting an open house this weekend!

This is an indoor-outdoor event. For more information about ACCPF and the Community Open House visit www.acparks.org. Hope to see you there!

February brought one day of measurable rainfall to the Napa Valley. Rainfall totals at the County ALERT monitoring stations (napa.onerain.com) were well below average for the month, ranging between 0.0 and 0.08 inches, less than 0.1% of mean annual precipitation. On average, we get 19% of our annual rainfall during the month of February.

Many insect pollinators are declining in California, including bees and butterflies. The western monarch population has declined 95% since the 1980s, likely due to multiple factors including habitat loss and degradation, pesticides, and climate change.

One important step we can take to protect these important animals is to increase the amount of habitat available to these species. To this end, The Xerces Society is offering habitat kits that contain climate-smart native plants to project partners who are willing to provide the time, labor and land to develop habitats that support monarchs and other pollinators in California.

Kits are intended to be used to create or enhance monarch and pollinator habitat on working lands or public lands, with landowner or land manager collaboration. This includes farms, ranches, tribal land, urban farms or gardens, city parks, school gardens, or other public areas. The kits are not intended to be used in home gardens.

The Xerces Society is encouraging private landowners of working lands to partner with their local Resource Conservation District (that's us!) or other technical liaisons on their projects.

You can fill out the interest form until April 15 here on the Xerces website.

Earth Day Napa is turning 50 - again - and will feature our regular Community Cleanup from 9-11 AM, along with the return of the family-friendly festival at Oxbow Commons, 11 AM - 4 PM!

See you there!

Our partners, ParkRx Napa County, are hosting a Virtual Ranger Training! Come learn about your local ParkRx coalition, find out what ParkRx is, how we can help to create stewards of the land, and tools and resources that connect our community to our local parks and open spaces.

Meet Ali (Alison) Blodorn, our new Principal Program Manager for our Forestry programs! Ali just joined the team, coming on board on January 31!

Over the last ~15 years Ali has led collaborative research programs across a variety of settings ranging from academia to business marketing. Through these experiences she has developed expertise in project and grant management, partnership development, and staff supervision. She had been wanting to apply her skillset to the conservation space for some time, and this desire was reinforced after she moved to Napa in the fall of 2020 and started getting engaged with the local community. Ali first learned about Napa RCD from viewing our oak plantings while hiking at Skyline Park. Ali started regularly checking our website for job openings, and when she saw the posting for this job she thanked her lucky stars and applied immediately!

At a high level, Ali will be overseeing Napa RCD’s forestry programming and helping to shape the vision and strategy for our continued growth in services. One project that she is currently focusing on is the Regional Forest and Fire Capacity program, funded by the California Department of Conservation, which involves collaborating with neighboring counties to increase our regional capacity to plan and implement projects that will improve forest health and fire resiliency.

Ali says she is incredibly excited to be building relationships with, and learning from, folks in Napa County and the broader region as we collaboratively work to improve the long-term health of our forests. One specific focus area that particularly excites her is the opportunity to support education and workforce development programs that will help to empower folks from all backgrounds to be stewards of our forests.

In her free time, Ali enjoys hiking, camping, volunteering at Little Moon Farm, eating as much local produce as possible, and learning about all things climate-related (a couple of her favorite podcasts are How to Save a Planet and A Matter of Degrees).

When asked to share one fun fact about her, Ali mentioned that she grew up in a solar powered house that her parents built in a remote area of central California. She thought it was super cool as a kid, and even outfitted her dollhouse with solar powered lights for her school science fair!

We love an enthusiastic former science fair participant, and we are excited to bring you further into the fold! Welcome to the team, Ali!