As we wrap up 2022, we are sharing in a series of newsletters some of the key accomplishments across West County in the past year. Check out the exciting updates below.

River MAC meeting December 15, 2022 5:30 – 7:30 pm

In the meantime, we are looking towards the future and how to continue to improve providing for our communities.In this spirit we are launching a Governance study at the next Lower Russian River MAC. Please join us for Thursday's River MAC meeting to learn more. click here for the full agenda and packet.

To join the zoom meeting, please click this link.

Or dial in usingOne tap mobile : US: +16699009128,,96576919135# or +16694449171,,96576919135#

Also Streaming Facebook Live on Supervisor Lynda Hopkins’ page https://www.facebook.com/supervisorlyndahopkins/

Youth Outreach Expansion

YES! Coast and YES! River Programs

Our outreach program offerings continued to expand in 2022, with the launch of YES! River, a summer program focused on connecting youth ages 14-18 to the outdoors through weekly excursions to river-area parks, with an emphasis on exposing them to STEM careers in land management, and connecting them to their communities through service-learning projects. YES! River joins our popular YES! Coast program, which has a focus on tribal cultural traditions and coastal ecology. A total of 80 local teens joined our 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 cohorts for YES! Coast and our 2022 cohort for YES! River.



New coastal field trips

Additionally, we launched a new series of coastal field trips for elementary school students at Pinnacle Gulch near Bodega Bay. Through hands-on exploration, and field observation, students learned about how species are interconnected and how tide pool inhabitants adapt to changing tides and extreme conditions. This new program served nine classes last spring, reaching 247 students.

Click here for more information on these an other outreach programs.

Vegetation management

Gualala Point Regional Park

This past year, we implemented several projects at Gualala Point Regional Park to reduce the density of natural vegetation and future wildfire risk. In early 2022, we worked with the California Conservation Corps to thin trees and brush throughout the 140-acre north coast park. The excess debris was then collected into 200 piles and burned during a prescribed burn in partnership with Cal Fire, the North Sonoma Coast Fire Protection District, and the South Coast (Mendocino) Fire Protection District. Managing vegetation in an ecologically appropriate way reduces potential wildfire fuel – and in turn potential severity – and helps protect the park and adjacent communities from future wildfires.

Monte Rio Redwoods Regional Park

Similar to our work done at Gualala, we’ll be implementing a large-scale vegetation management project at Monte Rio Redwoods Regional Park in 2023. This project, also known as a shaded fuel break, will reduce the density of vegetation in an ecologically appropriate area, with the goal of slowing any future wildfire. This work is funded by the State Coastal Conservancy

Carrington Coast Ranch

This future regional park features 335 acres of open coastal prairie, rolling hills, remaining elements of a historic dairy ranch, and spectacular views of the Sonoma coastline and ocean. The planning process for a full public opening of this future park is already underway, and in the interim we continue to host guided public outings, in partnership with the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District. This season, we offered five public "Park Preview Days" at Carrington, giving 117 visitors the chance to learn about and explore this exciting new property. Read more planning updates here.

Guerneville boat launch - Guerneville River Park

In August 2022, we opened the community’s first public boat launch at Guerneville River Park. Designed for canoes, kayaks, stand-up paddle boards and other non-motorized watercraft, the project is part of our effort to improve access to the Russian River and community recreation opportunities. In addition to the non-motorized boat ramp, other enhancements to the river park included a second vehicle entrance off of Highway 116 and a new parking lot, ADA accessible trails, family picnic sites, a small group picnic site, and improvement of the native riparian habitat within the park.

Future regional park – Monte Rio Redwoods Regional Park

We've been working hard to ready this 515-acre future park for guided public outings, which we hope to begin in 2023 in partnership with the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District. Recent work includes clearing out accumulated garbage and debris – some from the property's logging history, some from more recent illegal marijuana grows – and partnering with Conservation Corps North Bay, the Redwood Trails Alliance, and many community volunteers to improve existing trails on the park's often rugged and steep terrain.

Upgrades to an existing trail parallel to Dutch Bill Creek along Main Street were completed in October 2022.

The planning process for a full public opening of this future park is already underway, and you can stay up to date on the progress of this park here..

Managing Impact along our Coast and River

Regional Parks River Shuttle

We wrapped up another successful season of the Regional Parks River Shuttle, which shuttles river visitors from Santa Rosa to the Steelhead Regional Park and Sunset River Beach, ever-popular summer swimming and floating destinations. The shuttle, operating every weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day, carried a total of 1,461 passengers this season, thereby reducing at least that many individual car trips to the river, while alleviating traffic congestion and parking impacts in river neighborhoods on the busy summer weekends.

Leave No Trace partnership expands

In August, nearly 30 volunteers spread out over land and water to clean up trash on the Russian River between Steelhead Beach and Sunset Beach River Park. The land- and kayak-based clean up was hosted as part of our ongoing multi-year partnership with Leave No Trace (LNT) and Sonoma County Tourism, focused on empowering visitors and residents to take actions to be good stewards of Sonoma County's natural resources.

Participants afloat lugged some unusual debris out of the weeds, including a sand-filled sleeping bag, two tires, and a traffic construction sign, and volunteers also filled 12 5-gallon buckets with smaller debris — bottles, cans, small pieces of plastic and other trash.

The Press Democrat covered the event with this article.

Cleaner California Coast

Inspired by our progress at the county level, we've joined Marin and Mendocino counties to launch Cleaner California Coast, a coordinated regional campaign to provide visitor education and outreach aimed at reducing the amount of litter and waste in coastal regions and watersheds. The effort includes federal and state agencies, federally recognized tribes, non-federally recognized tribes, local jurisdictions and land managers, Sonoma County Tourism, and other community-based groups across all three counties.

Read more here.

Wildlife-safe trash and recycling - Stillwater Cove Regional Park

To protect wildlife, we completely replaced trash and recycling infrastructure at Soda Springs Reserve (near Annapolis) and campground food lockers at Stillwater Cove Regional Park, supported by the Sonoma County Regional Parks Foundation and the Sonoma County Fish and Wildlife Commission. Black bears have been seen in Sonoma County and these "bear-safe" improvements prevent bears, and smaller animals like skunks, raccoons and foxes, from becoming habituated to human garbage and food.

STAY CONNECTED