Norm ‘Willie’ Simms works for Donati Estate Vineyards and has done so for the past 6 years.  He joined the vineyard when they first purchased the land.  His route to becoming a vineyard manager is interesting.  He was Vice President of Facilities for Zycon Corporation.  At Zycon, he oversaw all the permits and dealt with the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board and all the environmental regulatory agencies.  Zycon was bought out and the man who was his boss at the time offered him the opportunity to be the ranch Manager for his son, Matt’s, vineyards.  The only experience that he had was engineering and his only relevant background was the managing the company’s environmental compliance, so everyday he is learning.  The Donati Estate Vineyards was established 6 years ago.  They have plans to one day have an events center and wine tasting room, in addition to the vineyards.  Currently, they own a total of 1100 acres and have between 290 and 320 acres planted in grapes. 

Willie has always complied with rules so, when he got the letter from Farm Bureau telling him about the Ag Waiver requirements and signing up for the short course meeting, he knew that he had to attend.  At first he was very angry about the new regulations.  He felt that companies always get blamed for everything and, because of his high tech background, he has known a lot of start up companies that fail due to all the regulations with which they need to comply.   But Willie has learned two things while working for different companies; they are that 1) you can’t go against the regulatory agencies when you are planning to expand (e.g.; build something like an event center) and that 2) all companies should and need to comply with regulations.

Willie said that he learned a lot from taking the Short Course even though he resented having to do more work and more classes at first.  But, by the time he was done with the Short Course, he felt that he had learned so much about water issues and what he needed to do at the vineyard.  He always was sure that he never thought that he had any run off and, if he did, that the water running off of his property was the cleanest ever.  Then he started to look around and started to notice things.  He said that, at one of the first conversations he had with MaryEllen, he told her that they do not have any run off, and she said go and looked at your property.  Willie took that advice and, at the first big rainstorm, he rode around the perimeter of the vineyard.  What he found was something different than what he expected that he would see - he did see sediment-laden runoff!   Looking closer, he saw that the sediment was coming from the roads, not the fields, so, as soon as it was dry enough he got to work to fix the problem.

Matt Donati, the owner, and workers at the vineyard help Willie and support him 100%.  They know that they cannot make all the changes in one year but they are all trying and always figuring out new ways to do something.  The vineyard only has runoff from storm events because the grapes are all irrigated on a drip system.  The biggest improvement that they have done, the one that has shown the most results, is re-grading the road so that the water is not going into the culvert and down to creek, instead the water stays on the vineyard.  They have also rearranged the rows that are on the hills, so that when the water comes down, it hits another section and stays there, it never leaves the property.  They also have left many hillsides grassy.  They don’t clean them up so that the plants can filter and retain the rainwater on site.  On the grassed hills, they have dug culverts to collect the rainwater and protect their small riparian area.

Since the Short Course, Willie has driven all the around and taken many pictures to document what he has done and what still needs to be done.  He also has tested the water once and has looked at the data by Terry Hall from NRCS.   He still plans to keep up with the ever-changing water issues and he has attended the watershed working group meeting.  He knows that he has done a good thing by going to this class and will keep on updating his farm plan as well so that he can keep making sure that his runoff is the cleanest!