Intense study for timber-to-vines

West county vineyard conversion project to analyze carbon storage, release

Add another distinction for the vast Preservation Ranch vineyard and timber conversion plan.

It will be the first project in Sonoma County analyzed on the basis of how much carbon it stores in the soil or releases into the atmosphere.

The project, the largest timberland conversion ever proposed in the county, likely will go forward with state-required environmental studies this summer.

If approved by the county Board of Supervisors, the project would place about 1,800 acres of vineyards on 20,000 acres of heavily logged land in the northwest section of the county outside Annapolis.

The developer, Premier Pacific Vineyards of Napa, expects the environmental studies to take more than a year, to cost more than $1 million and to add to the stacks of previous studies for the land that have cost more than $5 million.

"It will probably be the best understood 20,000 acres in the county," said Eric Koenigshofer, a former county supervisor and Premier Pacific spokesman.

Jay Halcomb, chairman of the Sierra Club's Redwood Chapter, which opposes the project, said the environmental studies will be crucial because Preservation Ranch could set precedents for future efforts to plant vineyards on forest lands.

"It's going to become a standard for smaller conversions and maybe larger ones," Halcomb said.

Along with carbon storage, or sequestration, other issues to be studied will involve greenhouse gases, water and impacts on fisheries, and the public benefits and costs.

Premier Pacific purchased the land in 2004 for $28.5 million. The company has focused on creating high-end vineyards in three states and has obtained a $200 million investment from CalPERS, the state employees' retirement system.

For years, environmentalists have voiced concern about the company's plans.

Premier Pacific maintains the vineyards will pay for the restoration and sustainable forest management of the remaining timber lands. The company also has offered to donate 220 acres to expand an adjacent county park, to place more than 2,700 acres under permanent conservation easement and to cut the possible home sites to 61 from 160.

And in an era when climate change is a hot topic, the developer proposes to be "carbon neutral." To do so, Koenigshofer said, the company would buy carbon offsets to balance the land clearing and other impacts.

Carbon sequestration is a new issue for county projects, said Scott Briggs, manager for the county's environmental review division. It has been only a few years since greenhouse gases became a topic, though those impacts were studied for a rock quarry and the recent Dutra Asphalt Plant in Petaluma.

It's one thing to quantify the carbon amounts stored in trees and soil or released into the atmosphere. It's another to rule which amounts are allowed or unacceptable.

"That's the $64 question," Briggs said. That decision eventually will fall to the Board of Supervisors.

Halcomb of the Sierra Club questioned calling the project carbon neutral when so many trees will be cut down.

He maintained the land should remain in forest, and he pointed to restoration work on Mendocino County's Garcia River as an example of an alternative to converting land to vineyards.

David Schiltgen, the county's planner for the project, said the public has until May 25 to offer written comments on any items that should be included in the environmental studies.

When completed, he said, the environmental impact report and related documents could add a couple of feet of material to the current stacks published for the project.

Of the report, Schiltgen said, "It's going to be a doozy."