We absolutely love Suisun Valley. Its combination of good access and agricultural beauty makes it unique in Northern California Wine Country.
Suisun Valley is not pretentious. Suisun Valley is humble, kind, and populated with friendly and hardworking people who mostly share an appreciation for the special place we live.
Suisun Valley, beautiful as it is, is becoming a bit of a monoculture, agriculturally. Today vineyards dominate the landscape, and we have lost much of our agricultural diversity, including row crops, orchards, livestock production, dry yards, and other traditional agricultural land uses. We don’t advocate for laws or policies that are unsupportive of our local wine industry, but we think it is important to raise awareness among property owners of the risks of becoming overly dependent on a single crop. We are purposely steering the agricultural production of our own Dove Nest Ranch to more of a poly-culture approach. We also are placing an emphasis on an expansion of wildlife and riparian habitats and expanding groundwater re-charge within our own Ranch.
We are nervous about efforts to expand traditional utility infrastructure within Suisun Valley. This has the risks for building the pillars upon which the valley could be converted to urban usage over time, long after present policymakers have exited the scene. Current technologies are rapidly being improved to allow for a more sustainable and decentralized approach to water usage, organic waste processing, and power generation. Policymakers will hopefully be wise enough to think about the future, in terms of the trend line in the development of future technologies, rather than basing current policy decisions simply on historical precedents.
It is important to establish economically oriented policies that support the financial health of agriculturally oriented businesses in Suisun Valley. Failure to do this will result in increased pressure among existing property owners to convert property to urbanized uses and away from agriculture. This is a careful balancing act. Providing the right economic ecosystem that supports the valley as an agricultural center will require a healthy amount of agri-tourism. It is the agri-tourism economy that generates customers that power local agriculturally oriented businesses. Too much agri-tourism runs the risk of making Suisun Valley a de-facto “urban farm”. We risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Too little agri-tourism will force smaller agri-business interests to push for urban re-zoning. We see these forces in action right now in the feelings expressed by certain of our neighbors…
In addition to agri-tourism, it is important to address the need for affordable farm labor housing. Making sensible decisions, that do not promote sprawl, to allow for on-site workforce housing, would be helpful in assisting the local agribusiness needs. This would also reduce pressure for affordable housing to develop within urbanized areas and reduce traffic from employees traveling long distances to local agribusiness employment.
We think that an example of bad local government policy includes the “northern connector” road through southern Suisun Valley. This road extends from Abernathy to lower Green Valley, south of Rockville Road, and North of Interstate 80. The alternative proposed “southern connector” route would have been a much more environmentally sound approach, as well as actually making sense from a traffic demand standpoint. The northern connector has minimal traffic use and has been the primary driver behind much new urbanization in southern Suisun Valley with office parks, high-density housing, etc. clustering around this new arterial. This is what happens when governmental agencies expand road and utility infrastructure…urbanization soon follows…
Call us “tree-huggers” if you must, but it is very important to maintain a wildlife corridor of suitable habitat between our local upland wildlands, which stretch all the way to the Oregon border, and the lowland marsh habitats of Suisun Marsh. Suisun Marsh is one of the largest estuaries in the United States, and rather than just being protected, it should be repaired and enhanced. Suisun and Ledgewood Creeks both are critical habitat corridors, which are being permanently destroyed by projects like the Northern Connector, and the expansion of I-80 and the truck scales project. We support a wildlife overpass to be constructed across I-80 in the Southern Suisun Valley, and a permanent ban on further annexation of lands by the City of Fairfield in this region. The inability of wildlife to access the Suisun Marsh genetically isolates existing Marsh-based wildlife populations and will seriously damage the marsh's habitat over time.
Regarding riparian habitats, we have noticed, just in the last thirty years of living along Gordon Valley Creek, a lowering of creek bottoms in the valley, as water flows have been managed into “ditches”. This is environmentally undesirable. Our land use behaviors should anticipate and allow for localized flooding. We should not be trying to prevent floods. Instead, we should encourage more water retention zones, where excess run-off has a place to be captured and percolate back into the groundwater aquifers. Retention basins are also areas where wildlife habitats can be expanded. All these new dry-farmed head-pruned vineyards are sucking at the water table. Over time, they will put pressure on the water table. Capturing rainwater run-off associated with expanded retention basin creation can help mitigate the impacts of extensive dry farming.
