SodaCanyonRoad | More oaks to vines on Soda Canyon Road
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More oaks to vines on Soda Canyon Road
Bill Hocker | Aug 8, 2023 on: Watershed Issues


Notice of Intent to adopt a neg dec for Red Boat Vineyard (comments due 6/7/23)
Project documents
Narrative and Plans

It is probably hypocritical to take issue with the the pursuit of the Napa Good Life, especially for a fellow resident on Soda Canyon Road. But the project is one of many that represents the much bigger issue that the county must face in the age of global warming: how many acres of carbon-sequestering, aquefer-protecting woodlands should the county allow to be converted to GHG-generating, aquefer-consuming vineyards in a world in which GHG reduction and water conservation are becoming existential survival strategies.

As vineyards in the heart of the valley are being removed for entertainment centers and processing plants (recent example), the grapes must be found elsewhere. And the wooded knolls and mountains that surround the valley, despite the massive amounts of carbon unsequestered and mountains of rocks that must be dug up or blasted to make them farmable, are now the resource being exploited to allow continuing economic growth of Napa's increasingly corporate, bottom-line-driven, wine industry.

An appropriate balance of agriculture to woodland and winemaking to tourism, to insure economic sustainability, has already produced a successful economy in Napa County for the last 50 years. As long as existing vineyards are protected and as long as forever-increasing corporate profits, taxes and fees are not the basis for land development decisions, Napa's rural heritage can be retained for another 50. If economic growth is the only measure that counts then we are doomed, as is increasingly evident, to the exhaustion of our resources and the environmental catastrophe that results.