California kids work to restore creek, secure water for native plants

Nearly 800 Northern California schoolchildren descended the banks of Stemple Creek earlier this year to plant more than 3,000 native plant species. They joined the accredited Marin Agricultural Land Trust and a coalition working to enhance the critically important waterway that flows through thousands of acres of agricultural land, including Lazy R Ranch.

To help the young plants survive, MALT secured one of the project’s most important ingredients: water. Although parts of California currently face the prospect of intense flooding, at the time, the severity of California’s drought left little in Lazy R Ranch’s main pond to irrigate the project’s plants.

In 2021, MALT launched a Drought Resilience and Water Security Initiative (DRAWS) to help Marin County farmers and ranchers develop water sources, add water storage and increase water distribution. With DRAWS funding, Lazy R Ranch installed a rainwater harvesting system, a 5,000-gallon tank and a pumping system to feed the property’s main pond. After the new water storage system was installed, the main pond at the Lazy R Ranch was full for the first time in years, with enough water resources for the livestock operation and to ensure the project’s plantings could firmly take root.

“It’s amazing to see this all come to fruition,” said the Lazy R Ranch’s Linda Righetti Judah. “It’s truly a dream come true.”

Marin Resource Conservation District and Point Blue Conservation Science’s Students and Teachers Restoring A Watershed (STRAW) program secured more than $800,000 for the project. Marin Resource Conservation District is now looking to other properties within the Stemple Creek watershed, many of which are MALT-protected, to conduct similar initiatives to enhance water quality.