Napa Watershed Project

Project Goals and Objectives

This project, funded through a Proposition 40 Agricultural Water Quality Program Grant awarded by the State Water Resources Control Board is designed to develop a geographic framework for solving agricultural management challenges related to the 303(d) listing of sediment. The project will use a watershed-based approach to meet the following goals:

• (1) Fill information gaps that currently prevent evaluation of alternative restoration and management alternatives required for removal of the Napa River from the 303(d) list of waters impaired by sediment; and
• (2) utilize existing partnerships in the Napa River watershed to promote technical transfer and monitoring guidance to landowners in prioritized reaches of the Napa River and major tributaries and to assist in the preparation of implementation plans.

The objectives of the proposed work are to:

• (a) Identify the sources of, and relationships between, impairment factors;
• (b) identify stream reaches along the mainstem and major tributaries where changes in current agricultural management practices can have the greatest multiple benefits;
• (c) test current hypotheses, based on recent information compiled by Napa County and as part of recent impairment assessment activities, as to which suite of management practices may most affect sediment supply, transport, and deposition and beneficial use attainment;
• (d) increase grower understanding about the interactions among various stressors contributing to impairment

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