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Who You Can Work With:
San Benito County
 
Monterey San Benito San Mateo



 

Central Coast Agricultural Water Quality Coalition
The Coalition's Ag Water Quality Program Coordinators are involved in organizing groups of growers and leading them through a Farm Water Quality Planning Short Course.  Coordinators also refer growers to appropriate AWQA technical assistance specialists who can work with growers to design and implement new management practices.

 

Program Manager
Ruthie Schafer
2825 Porter Street, Ste B
Soquel, CA 95073
831.477.0404
ruthie.schafer@agwaterquality.org

 

Agriculture Water Quality Program Coordinator
San
Benito and Santa Clara Counties
MaryEllen Dick
16470 Twin Lakes Drive
Watsonville, CA  95076
831.786.9225
maryellendick@sbcglobal.net

MaryEllen Dick

 

USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) NRCS Logo
The USDA-NRCS provides free technical planning assistance to farmers, ranchers, and rural land owners to address resource concerns on your property.  The District Conservationist in each county can arrange for a site assessment and consulation.  NRCS also has specialists that work exclusively on water quality issues as part of the AWQA.

District Conservationist
San Benito and Santa Clara Counties
Bob Rohde
2337 Technolgy Parkway, Suite C
Hollister, CA 95023
831.637.4360 x105
bob.rohde@ca.usda.gov

 
John Warner

Range Management Specialist
John Warner
2337 Technology Parkway, Suite C
Hollister, CA 95023
831.637.4360 x112
john.warner@ca.usda.gov

Services Provided (and time requirement):

  • Conservation Plans. These usually require at least two site visits and take several weeks to complete.
  • Recommendations for cross fencing, range seeding, brush clearing, cover crops, weed management, and other non-engineering conservation practices, can be completed by the next business day, depending on workload.
  • Information about solar systems for livestock water systems.
  • Mapping I am available for field visits to map conservation projects on farms and ranches. Using a GPS unit, the points taken in the field are then downloaded onto aerial photos and/or topographic maps. These maps can contain information about soils, flood zones, wildlife information, or other background layers that are of interest to the land owner or manager. Maps can be completed by the next business day, depending on workload.
  • Presentations I am available for giving presentations on Farm Bill Cost-Share Programs, Mapping, Pesticide Risk Assessments, Goals Setting, and other subjects as requested.

  • Residual Dry Matter determinations (done in the fall before the first rains). The samples take about a month to air-dry in the office and the data can be made available to the land owner or manager at that time.
  • Pesticide risk assessments Based on the specific soils and local conditions of the farm or ranch, pesticide risk assessments for water quality can be completed using a USDA windows based “Pesticide Screening Tool”. This program generates easy-to-understand reports that can be completed by the next business day, depending on workload.

 

Hydrologist
Nick Lasher
744-A La Guardia St.
Salinas, CA 93905
831.710.2540
nick.lasher@ca.usda.gov

 

Services Provided

  • Site Visits, assessments, engineering surveys, engineered designs, and construction inspections for
    • Private ranch, rural and access roads
    • Erosion control projects (sediment basins, gully restoration, stormwater management
  • Work with landowners, operators, and conservation partners on
    • Initial site visits for resource concerns
    • Proposing solutions/structural designs/management practices
    • Preparing cost estimates
    • Planning and designing
  • Review other engineering work related to road and conservation engineering

Time Requirement fo Services Provided

  • General road engineering (i.e. give general road engineering alternatives verbally)
    • 0-2 hours
  • Site specific road engineering consultation (i.e. walk the road and give verbal site alternatives)
    • 0-3 days
  • Review of outside engineering work to ensure NRCS practice compliance
    • 0-1 month
  • Determine feasibility of project (typically entails same process as full design)
    • 0-8 months
  • Complete engineering design
    • 2 months

 

 

 

Civil/Environmental Engineer
Dina Cadenazzi
2337 Technology Parkway, Suite C
Hollister, CA  95023
831.637.4360 x109
dina.cadenazzi@ca.usda.gov

 

Services Provided

  • Biotechnical engineering for riparian and stream corridors, wetlands and erosion control
  • Investigating engineering problems, feasibility studies and planing and design
  • Work with individuals, operators and interagency staff
Dina Cadenazzi

 

San Benito County Resource Conservation District resoruce conservation district logo
Assists growers and ranchers with the planning, design, and implementation of agricultural conservation and water quality protection practices.

Conservation Program Specialist
Karminder Brown
2337 Technology Parkway, Ste C
Hollister, CA 95023
831.637.4360 x103

Conservation Program Specialist
Kellie Guerra
2337 Technology Parkway, Ste C
Hollister, CA 95023
831.637.4360 x101

 

University of California Cooperative Extension
San Benito County

County Director
Patricia Johns
P.O. Box 1956
Hollister, CA 95024-1956
(831) 637-5346

 

Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF)

CAFF logo
CAFF fosters family-scale agriculturethat cares for the land, sustains local economies, and promotes social justice.  Members are urbanites, farmers, environmentalists, rural activists, students, andanyone concerned with the social and environmental dimensions of agriculture.  Sam Earnshaw specializes in the planning and installation of insectary hedgerows, erosion control plantings, and wildlife habitat.

Central Coast Regional Coordinator
Sam Earnshaw
PO Box 1766
Watsonville, CA 
(831) 722-5556
sambo@cruzio.com

Sam Earnshaw

 

Central Coast Water Quality Preservation, Inc.  

Central Coast Water Quality Preservation, Inc., (CCWQP) manages the Cooperative Monitoring Program (CMP) on behalf of irrigated agriculture throughout the Central Coast.

For more information please contact:

Executive Director
Kirk Schmidt
PO Box 1049
Watsonville CA 95077
831-761-8644 x14
kschmidt@ccwqp.org

Program Manager
Sarah Greene
PO Box 1049
Watsonville CA 95077
831-331-9051 (cell, preferred)
831-761-8644 (office)
sgreene@ccwqp.org

 

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