Volunteers safeguard Sonoma Valley waterways against ash, debris from October firestorm

A small team of environmentally minded volunteers quickly placed a line of bags filled with gravel along the sloped driveway of a burned home near Kenwood on Saturday morning, hoping to create a barrier to prevent rain from carrying ash and debris into the creek running just across the road.

Not far from the entrance to Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, the destroyed home on Adobe Canyon Road is one of hundreds targeted by the Sonoma Ecology Center as part of a coordinated effort to protect Sonoma Valley waterways in the wake of the October wildfires. The volunteers’ work was simple, but the line of bags will play a critical role as the wet season progresses, allowing runoff to pass through without bringing toxic materials into neighboring Sonoma Creek.

The ash sitting on sites of burned structures is perhaps the greatest current risk to the Sonoma Valley’s watershed, said Mark Newhouser, the ecology center’s restoration program manager.

“The fires occurred right before the rainy season started, and this ash is still very fresh,” Newhouser said. “It can mobilize, both in wind and in rain, and if it runs off and gets in the creeks, it could contaminate our streams and harm our fish and wildlife. So we recognize that this is a high priority.”

Sonoma Valley was hit hard last month by the Nuns fire, which burned more than 56,500 acres in Sonoma and Napa counties and destroyed or damaged about 1,000 buildings, according to Cal Fire. The fire’s devastating impact on the valley is evident in the massive hillside burn scars seen from Highway 12. For waterways, the threat looms large this winter, environmental experts say.

The ecology center has identified more than ?100 Sonoma Valley structures destroyed by flames that lie within 100 feet of local streams, Newhouser said. About 350 structures are within 200 feet of a stream and more than ?500 are within 300 feet, he said.

To protect the waterways, the ecology center is deploying erosion-control measures such as the gravel bags and sandbags and also wattles - cylindrical bundles of straw placed around burned structures and staked in place to guard against runoff. Already, the center has protected about 50 structures, and several more were on the list Saturday, including the Adobe Canyon Road home where volunteers laid gravel bags and another one up the street where they put wattles in place.

The wattles and gravel bags are only temporary. They’ll be taken away during the debris removal process or by the center afterward, according to Newhouser.

The volunteers working Saturday at the sites down the road from Sugarloaf were motivated to protect their valley’s watershed.

“We’re all downstream,” said volunteer Todd Board, who lives in Kenwood. “Time is of the essence with this stuff if we have a decent rainy season.”

Volunteer Bruce Hall had flames lick the passenger side of his car while he fled his Kenwood home last month. A volunteer at Sugarloaf for two years, Hall is now helping the ecology center with its watershed protection program a few days a week.

“I go where I feel needed,” he said. “These are things that I can help with.”

You can reach Staff Writer J.D. Morris at 707-521-5337 or jd.morris@pressdemocrat.com.