RANCHO BAULINES LAND MANAGEMENT REPORT     

On behalf of Preserve Historic Olema Valley, Dr. Robert Curry, who directs California State University Watershed Institute, has developed a land management plan for Rancho Baulines. He describes the ranch, which serves as the welcoming entrance to the southern end of the Olema Valley, as being "in the best condition of any similar habitats in public or private ownership on the Point Reyes Peninsula."

Dr. Curry has studied the Bolinas and Tomales Bay watersheds since the early 1960s. He directed student research on Bolinas Lagoon sedimentation in the 1990s. PHOV sent a copy of Dr. Curry's report to Point Reyes National Seashore Superintendent Don Neubacher. The hope is that its findings will be considered as the new General Management Plan and the Fire Management Plan for the parklands administered by PRNS are developed.

PHOV has also offered to consider a request to fund research of the numerous studies done by the numerous governmental agencies and prominent universities on the environmental benefits of grazing livestock on lands which have historically been grazed. Anyone interested in assisting with this project should email us about their interest at phov@marinwatch.org.

LAND MANAGEMENT REPORT
Watershed Systems
Hydrology - Geology - Soil Science     Robert Curry, Ph.D., P.G.
curry@cats.ucsc.edu


Stephan Volker, Esq.
Law Offices of Stephan C. Volker
436 14th Street, Suite 1300
Oakland, California 94612

    March 12, 2001

Re: Rancho Baulines land management

Dear Mr. Volker and clients:

You have asked me to briefly outline Best Management Practices that would be applicable to Rancho Baulines that I have found to be effective to manage ranch lands in California and the West to reduce surface and subsurface discharge from animal waste materials, to assist in protection of water quality, and to manage exotic invasive species. You have also asked me to summarize my relevant training and experience.

Training and Experience:

My Ph.D. is in geology and hydrology from UC Berkeley and I have been an Emeritus Research Professor of Environmental Geology at UC Santa Cruz since 1995. My long-term experience in design and monitoring of animal facilities is coupled with my experience as a certified erosion control specialist and my professional credentials in restoration ecology. I currently direct the Watershed Institute at the California State University system where I am a professor of Watershed Science. In California I am often asked to evaluate the effectiveness of riparian buffer strips, NRCS designs, and existing conditions as they may or may not contribute to water quality degradation. My California foci, largely for the Regional Water Quality Control Boards, is to look at animal facilities as cumulative sources of pollutants and to suggest potential mitigations, particularly for listed impaired waterbodies.

I have studied the Point Reyes Peninsula and Bolinas Lagoon systems since 1963. I have directed student research on Bolinas Lagoon sedimentation (1980's) and ecological restoration of National Park Lands (1980's and 1990's). My students and I have worked with weed control and erosion control problems in GGNRA since its first transfer to the National Park Service. I am past chair of the Society for Ecological Restoration and have directed field conferences in the Golden Gate Headlands and Point Reyes National Seashore lands. Multiagency statewide weed management coordination is conducted annually through my Institute in Monterey where the "War on Weeds" program is housed. I have also studied, advised, and conducted research throughout the Marin domestic watershed, Mt. Tamalpais, and Golden Gate Headlands on the history of Native American land uses, fire, vegetation, and gully erosion.

Site Observations:

On February 5 of this year I visited Golden Gate National Recreation Area lands within Marin County, including the Baulines Rancho site. My last careful site evaluation was almost 12 years earlier as part of a multi-day University of California class field trip. I was amazed at the differences in degree of invasive plant takeover between the Baulines Rancho site and the GGNRA lands farther south over the past decade. At Ft. Baker, for example, it seems that the National Park Service has simply given up any pretext of management of pampas grass and French broom. Future management plans for restoration of historical and natural landscape features at Ft. Baker seem to me to be doomed to failure unless direct and rather heroic measures are taken to avoid weed- generated erosion and future landscape changes. Even the cultural features may be lost without vigorous control of exotic vegetation. Such sites, together with Golden Gate Bridge overlooks, serve as magnets for tourists who very efficiently spread exotic seeds throughout western North America.

The Point Reyes National Seashore lands are also in bad shape from exotic pest invasion. Cape Ivy and French Broom seem to be the primary problem species at the present time. At Ft. Ord, where highly degraded military lands were passed to the Bureau of Land Management just as the pest species started to take over native ecosystems, more than half of the entire Department of Interior land management budget goes into vigorous weed control to let us barely keep up with the potential problem. Current research by my students in the former Ft. Ord public lands is proving the efficacy of livestock management for control of exotics and for preservation and even enhancement of habitats for rare and endangered species (for example Grey Hayes, University of California Santa Cruz pH candidate (grey@cats.ucsc.edu), personal communication). What is remarkable and clearly evident is that the Rancho Baulines lands are in the best condition of any similar habitats in public or private ownership on the Point Reyes Peninsula. Despite large volunteer work parties to remove invasive species at nearby Audubon Canyon Ranch and the Point Reyes Bird Observatory site, both are heavily draped with Cape Ivy. Without similar control efforts, the lands presently leased from the NPS by Mary Tiscornia at Rancho Baulines are in reasonably good shape.

I walked over both forested and grassland areas of Baulines Rancho from the north to near the south boundary of those lands. I observed hoof chiseled rutted trails used by horse riders and domestic cattle. I observed evidence of past gully erosion now healing. I observed evidence of the 1982 and possibly 1964 floods that carried thick (greater than 1-foot) layers of alluvium onto the lower pastures and meadows where active floodplains exist adjacent to the historic ranch buildings. I observed fire scars from the 1945 Bolinas Ridge fire. I noted evidence of control of Cape Ivy, thistle, and French Broom both on and off the Rancho lands. I inquired about current management practices for the 5 cows, 3 calves and 17 horses on this 1400-acre parcel as well as other land management strategies.

In my professional opinion, the current management of the Baulines Rancho lands is effectively preserving the mosaic of forest and open grassland that creates such a picturesque site. Any future land manager will be hard pressed to come up with a more cost-effective way to preserve this mosaic of ecosystems and open vistas of Bolinas Lagoon and Pt. Reyes. That is not to say that improvements in land management cannot be effected. Implementation of Best Management Practices for these lightly grazed lands can always be improved. But the mosaic of forest and meadow park lands, particularly the grass-covered hillsides and bottomlands that are resistant to fire, was borne through continued grazing throughout the Holocene (last 11,000 years) - presumably by elk. Without grazing by at least the present number of livestock or substitution of native grazers, this site would soon require several full-time employees with tractor and hand mowing equipment throughout the year. Large open hillsides that could not be tractor- mowed would require enormous labor for hand control. Without grazing or hand control, fire and shrub-cover would ensue as we see on Mt. Tamalpais farther south (cf., Gerbode Valley) and on parts of Pt Reyes to the west.

Termination of grazing can lead to the loss of grassland habitat and its displacement by dense chaparral such as coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis). This unnatural succession leads to a significant loss in species diversity, particularly among birds and flowering plants. Plant succession studies conducted by Professor Joe R. McBride of the University of California at Berkeley's School of Forestry and Conservation and by wildlife biologists at the East Bay Regional Park District confirm that light grazing is the best means by which to maintain grassland habitat in California coastal valleys. These studies show that grazing maintains habitat for many animal species including golden eagles; burrowing owls; buteos such as red-tailed hawks; buntings; meadow and horned larks; Brewer's, rusty and red-winged blackbirds; loggershead shrikes; kit foxes; garter snakes; tiger salamanders; and ground squirrels (which provide prey for many other species).

Dense chaparral also poses a significant hazard of wildfires that burn much hotter and longer than grassland fires, resulting in a greater incidence of hydrophobic soils and resulting sheet erosion and waterway sedimentation. Fire-induced erosion of the steep hillsides above Bolinas Lagoon could cause severe siltation of the lagoon and its tributary streams, smothering the benthic plants and animals on which numerous bird species rely for food.

The Baulines Rancho has apparently had sheep and more livestock in past times. Because cows and horses are not willing to eat French Broom when much more palatable grasses are nearby, consideration of an intensively-managed small goat herd with portable fencing might be considered for broom infestations. A drawback is that the goats (or sheep) are only needed occasionally, so the ranch manager must "loan them out" or feed and pasture them throughout the year. For our Bureau of Land Management weed control areas for thistle and broom we "rent" a herder and flock of sheep for a few months every year. We pay to be grazed, but greatly restrict the areas of grazing and pay very little - essentially covering the cost of shipping the herder and flock from the Central Valley to the coast in the summer. Coordination with National Park Service weed and forage management staff may permit the Baulines Rancho to house the sheep or goat herd throughout the year but have it on-site only two months out of 12.

An alternative for the lightly grazed area above the fenceline of the north horse pasture could be, first, to mow down all old, dry, tall grass and thistles and broom to allow sunlight in to encourage growth of new grass; second, to fence the area in question; and third, to put a local rancher's herd of cattle on the land for the months when the feed is good to graze it all down and then take them off when it dries up, allowing the land to rest and recover through late summer, autumn and winter. The manager could then restock the land in spring when the grass is up and of good quality.

Best Management Recommendations:

Obviously, no two sites are identical and each facility must be evaluated individually. One cannot establish Park-wide practices that are effective in all locations. But one can establish guidelines and Best Management Practices that can serve to maintain and improve existing conditions, without onerous expense. The responsibility of land ownership mandates control of erosion, invasive plants, animal wastes, and excess runoff.

The basic strategy for protecting public health and safety with horse (and pig and goat) facilities is to capture barn, loafing shed, night confinement, or other concentrated animal occupancy runoff. Ideally, a centrally drained gently-sloped impermeable substrate such as rubber barn mats over concrete slab should carry urine and urine-soaked feces to a central sump or drain, at least 8 inches in diameter for every 4 or fewer horses or equivalent. That drain should feed to a standard drain field of perforated pipe, sized as it would be for human waste facilities (dependent on substrate characteristics). No septic tank is needed because solid wastes are minimal and human pathogens are absent. A drain-rock lined trench with the perforated drain line should be located as far as possible from domestic supply wells (but should be close to shallow irrigation wells where present).

In practice, a manure-handling shovel and a broom are used to clean up the solid wastes on the stall or barn floors and the minimal liquids are then washed, with a hose, down the sumps and into the drain lines. The water for this comes through a pressure nozzle on a regular garden hose. It takes 10 minutes maximum to hose out the barn. Each side of the barn has a drain with a 4-inch pipe that runs to a septic tank with a leach field. The troughs where the horses are fed are swept clean of any old feed regularly but not hosed out.

At Rancho Baulines the somewhat unusual livestock practice of using the barns only as a feeding station and turning the stock out into the forested hills for most of the day and night prevents much concentration of animal wastes. What concentration does occur is carried out daily and washed down, primarily to keep the feeding troughs clean. I recommend that the manure stockpile/compost aging area be located either on existing slightly elevated ground near the barns or that an elevated earthen pad is constructed to raise all manure above the level of runoff from the barn compound.

Because the horses (but not cows) move daily to the barns from the hillsides south of the ranch building area, I recommend that straw-bale, brush-pile, or naturally fallen native tree log temporary structures be carefully placed to spread and deflect the daily passage of stock where sites show evidence of heavy use. This will avoid rutting of trails close to the barns. Straw bales have the advantage of providing a material that can be spread as wet hay downslope to reduce sheet erosion. Brush piles and tree debris are difficult to move and the ideal temporary deflector will be disassembled and moved at least 4 or 5 times a year. In practice, a new straw bale deflector is dropped and the old one broken up and dispersed in a few hours when the site begins to show evident rilling or deep trampling. If a gully begins to form or if livestock begin to enter old healing gullies, these deflectors should be installed. Such a deflector should be installed above the creek that borders the pastures south of the farmhouse buildings. Allowing the stock to pick at the bales is OK so long as they are not genuinely palatable, because the stock will thus tend to conduct their own erosion control, and a new structure or a new bale can be added as needed. Rice straw is the best material for this purpose because it has few or no seeds that can germinate locally, is not at all palatable to horses and cows (but not goats), and holds together in bales reasonably well when wet in the winter.

Cattle need to be managed so that they do not habitually trail to water at the same places. Temporary drift fences, portable solar electric fences, or rotating pasture options are all desirable. The fact that water is piped from the creek on the northern part of the ranch lands (Lewis Creek) by gravity, around the nose of the interfluve between that watershed and the main watershed to the south, allows for hilltop stock watering. The single bathtub watering trough used at present should be replaced with several smaller movable troughs or with a network of buried 3/4-inch plastic lines and troughs to avoid overgrazing the ideal hilltop sites and enhancing the unpalatable rushes by grazing pressure from horses or cows.

The pig fence system has created a serious problem in the southernmost watershed that needs rectification. The hog-wire fence across the creek in the natural wetlands has caused aggradation and willows have grown in to fix that mass of sediment in place. This is not inherently bad. That is sediment that does not enter Bolinas Lagoon. I estimate that on the order of 750 cu yds of sediment are trapped on and around the pig fence near the entrance to the Rancho. The creek no longer follows a natural single- thread channel to Bolinas Lagoon and a clear statutory wetland has been created that may be about one-half acre in area. The hog wire itself is mostly buried and no longer exerting much influence. A careful management plan should be considered by all parties that insures that future flooding of the magnitude of that of 1982 does not isolate the Rancho and remove the public highway, while still respecting the created wetland.

Auger holes in the bottom lands near the barn buildings and adjacent pastures indicate that past erosion was much greater than at present. The healed and healing gullies, some as deep as 40-feet, in the uplands attest to past management that may not have been as responsible as that today. Fire may have been one of the prime determinants of past erosion events (buried soils all had charcoal). Fuel load management should be a primary concern of any managers. As the National Park Services knows only too well, fire can convert open parklands into dense shrubs with few trees, and we may have to wait for the next wetter glacial cycle to restore the metastable "natural" mosaic on the recently burnt ridges of the Pt. Reyes Peninsula. Fire will occur. We can alter the frequency and intensity to some degree but we cannot alter the certainty. What we can do is insure that there are grazers present to try to reduce grassland fuel loads and to try to favor native bunch grasses that are fire tolerant. My investigations on Rancho Baulines demonstrated a strong and vigorous native grassland with bunchgrass characteristics for sedges, grasses, and rushes.

Site Protection:

Managing open parkland habitats to optimize Threatened and Endangered species while simultaneously allowing and encouraging public visitor use requires extraordinarily careful planning. The options for maintaining the park mosaic on the Rancho Baulines site could be accomplished with controlled fire, with native grazers (elk), or with cattle and horses. Fencing off the Rancho Baulines site to accommodate elk would essentially exclude most visitor use. The present conflicts between visitors and elk at Pt. Reyes generally limit reintroduction of elk to places without much visitor use and without potential conflicts with residential uses in inholdings.

Protection of the native grasslands should be the highest management priority. I recommend domestic grazers if recreational use by hikers is to be preserved. Domestic livestock are much more compatible with human visitors than are elk. A student of mine narrowly escaped serious injury from a charging bull elk while engaged in a volunteer weed control effort on the Pt. Reyes peninsula, for example. Fire should remain an important part of any management strategy that protects historic habitats, but practical issues and liability limit its widespread and effective use in a place like Point Reyes. Thus, domestic grazers are the primary practical and cost-effective alternative.

Preservation of grassland habitat will help maintain the natural ecology of the ranch. Several sensitive and rare species are dependent on the continued maintenance of the Rancho Baulines mosaic of communities. Grey Hayes, who is currently working on several Pt. Reyes sites, has found that grazing creates significantly higher species diversity and cover for native, annual wildflowers. Hayes points out that any changes in management may require impact assessment that would involve surveys for Threatened and Endangered species of plants before changing those management strategies. He reports that elimination of grazing to protect a local wetland effectively eliminated Campanula californica, a very rare local species. He reports seeing the same trend in other areas where managers are eliminating grazing such as the Bull Point parking area cattle exclosure that eliminates habitat for the species of concern: Pt. Reyes Horkelia; and areas near North Beach, fenced to eliminate cattle, that eliminate habitat for Pt. Reyes Meadowfoam, an endangered species.

Conclusion:

In my opinion, the present management of Rancho Baulines is very close to the ideal Best Management Practices that could be a goal for the National Park Service. This site would be an ideal cultural national monument to demonstrate pastoral land uses, preserving and demonstrating how livestock can enhance land uses and land values. Too many well-intentioned people do not recognize the debt that they owe to thousands of years of grazing ungulates when they look at the landscapes of coastal California. They must see grazed and ungrazed lands in close proximity to realize how dramatically the grasslands are dependent on grazers. Simple fenced exclosures or alternate practices on adjacent parcels would create an excellent educational opportunity that is close to a major urban area. Light grazing should be continued at Rancho Baulines and the present management may be the best way to accomplish that on public lands.

Respectfully,
Robert R. Curry
Registered Professional Geologist