PHOTO: ETHAN DOW

On this Page

• Water When You Need It
• Clean Water for People and Wildlife
• Forest Health and Fire Resilience
• Hope for Wildlife
• Working at Scale: From Redwoods to the Sea
• Thriving Local Agriculture
• There When You Need Us
• Empowering Nature’s Stewards
• Business Model
• By the Numbers
• Getting It Done. Together.

Executive Director’s Message

I am thrilled to share this snapshot of the last 15 years of our rich, 84-year history serving the people and lands of San Mateo County.

Resource Conservation Districts (RCDs) were established by California law in 1939 in response to the agricultural crisis of the Dust Bowl. Today, climate change and species extinction have joined the list of evolving environmental and community priorities. To address these issues, we provide trusted technical assistance, help people access financial and other resources, and get work done on the ground.

We are keenly aware that thriving human communities and healthy natural resources depend upon each other. When natural systems are broken it is not just wildlife that suffers. Towns flood, forested neighborhoods burn, farmers fallow fields, and people risk illness from polluted water. This is why we protect
streamflows for endangered salmon while building community water security, restore the health of forests and build resilience to wildfire, remove dams, and restore habitat for endangered species … the list goes on.

Whatever we do, it is always in partnership with others. This report highlights just some of the remarkable things we have done together.

Kellyx Nelson

The RCD helps ensure reliable water for the farms, wildlife, and people who share this precious resource.

Our region has no snowpack, our summers are dry, and only some communities have access to public water supplies. It is essential that we balance competing demands on what we have.

This became clearer than ever during the recent unprecedented drought. Community water suppliers began rationing. Residents had to truck in water. Farmers fallowed fields. Threatened steelhead trout and endangered coho salmon teetered on the brink of extinction as local creeks dried up.

Despite uncertainties in our water supply, water wars that arise elsewhere do not happen here. This is in part thanks to the RCD’s decades of partnering to create equitable solutions for water security. We help people conserve, strategically manage, and store water. But most importantly, we understand the art and science of meeting the water needs of people and wildlife.

In coastal San Mateo County, land and sea are inexorably linked.

In a place like this, even small things—both positive and negative—make a big difference in the water quality of our local creeks and beaches. Because water pollution sources are many and complex and present different threats to public health and wildlife, there is no one solution.

Using an array of tools, the RCD works with numerous public and private landowners and other partners to protect and improve the region’s water quality. We find, prevent, and remediate water pollution and help others do the same. During the past 15 years, we have offered a wide range of services to marinas, farms, ranches, parks, equestrian facilities, residential landowners, cities, and utilities.

Healthy forests not only inspire us with their beauty, they also provide wildlife habitat, clean water, and store carbon—a valuable service in the fight against climate change.

Unhealthy forests grow thinner and weaker trees that store less carbon and provide poorer habitat. They are also more vulnerable to disease and intense wildfires that devastate the forest and neighboring communities alike. Fire also potentially increases carbon dioxide emissions, flooding, erosion, and habitat loss.

We help create resilient forests and communities by managing vegetation to promote larger stands of mature trees and improved ecosystems, reducing fuel loads, and helping community members create defensible spaces around their homes. And when a wildfire does occur, we are there to help with the recovery.

San Mateo County’s wetlands, grasslands, forests, and streams are its heart and lungs.

More than 40 of its plant and animal species are at risk of extinction, with habitat loss being the numberone threat to their survival. Our restoration work gives them a fighting chance.

We remove dams to reestablish ancestral migration routes of endangered salmon, bring water back to previously drained wetlands, stop invasive plants from overtaking native habitats, and more. For our work in protecting coho salmon, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recognized us in their report to the U.S. Congress as one of nine “Partners in the Spotlight,” helping prevent extinction of the nation’s most imperiled marine species.

People also thrive when healthy creeks reduce flooding, ponds provide water for cattle and fire suppression, native plants bring pollinators to our farms and gardens, and erosion control prevents road and bridge failures. And, of course, the beauty and healing power of nature are priceless.

Healthy watersheds support wildlife as well as resilient communities. They mitigate flooding, drought, and fire; protect species, land, and water; and contribute to local
economies.

We see this in Pescadero, where people depend on a tapestry of farms and nature for food, jobs, and recreational treasures, and wildlife depend on diverse, intact habitats. Working with many partners, we are restoring the watershed from the redwoods to the sea. This includes, among other things, developing water storage, restoring floodplains, building healthy soils, and studying water quality.

PHOTO: RCD

A new conservation plan for Fruition Farms is helping them implement nature-based solutions that tackle climate change and also benefit the farm.

PHOTO: TIM GRAMS

Releasing 10,000 critically endangered salmon into the wild rewards many years of habitat restoration and supports the survival of this species.

The character of San Mateo County has been shaped by its long history of ranching and farming.

Formed by local farmers in 1939, our RCD brings a deep understanding of their needs to our work at the intersection of conservation and agriculture. We support these environmental stewards as they care for the water and soil that are the foundation of our food system.

This work has spanned hundreds of projects and other activities that benefit commercial and educational farms, ranches, urban gardens, and greenhouses that produce an array of crops and livestock.

Through a partnership with San Mateo County, we are also home to the county’s Agricultural Ombudsman, which supports growers, County staff, and local planning efforts focused on the continued viability of local agriculture.

Whether our community is recovering from a natural disaster, concerned about erosion, or wants help protecting the environment, we are here.

With boots-on-the-ground expertise, the RCD responds to wildly diverse requests for help from residents, organizations, jurisdictions, farms, and more. Water-quality monitoring, water-system upgrades, soil testing in an urban community garden to ensure food safety, answering questions about composting, or managing forest roads: Whatever is needed, we find a way.

And when disaster strikes—be it flooding, drought, or fire—we provide essential services to reduce risks to life and property on the path toward recovery.

With its stunning natural beauty; diverse human, plant, and animal communities; and unique mix of urban, suburban, and rural living, San Mateo County is a place like no other.

Given such a wide range of resources and needs, the RCD’s workshops, webinars, and tours offer something for everyone: construction-equipment operators, farmworkers, homeowners, land managers, students young and old. Participants have learned how to identify noxious weeds, irrigate more efficiently, mitigate climate change, and tend livestock while caring for sensitive habitats, among a wealth of other topics.

Some take the extra step to learn by volunteering to monitor water quality at local creeks and beaches, help build a manure composting facility for an equestrian ranch, or plant native hedgerows.

Although the RCD is a form of local government, our business model is similar to that of a nonprofit organization. We depend on grants, donations, and other funding to support programs and administration, substantially leveraging a small local property tax base. Significant annual variation in these funding streams can make it challenging to manage staffing, maintain programs, or plan for the future.

Over time, we have built an operating reserve to help ensure some stability. However, increasing the RCD’s unrestricted operating revenue continues to be a priority so that we can weather uncertainties, remain a stable community resource, and retain high-quality staff.

Despite these challenges, the RCD has grown steadily, thanks both to our reputation for excellence and ability to accomplish high-priority work. At more than $17 million, the RCD’s FY 2024 budget is the largest in its history, a testament to our resiliency through the challenges of the 2008 recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the August 2020 CZU Lightning Complex wildfires.

Furthermore, we have brought substantial resources into the county, providing tax-paying constituents with great bang-for-their-bucks. In Fiscal Year ’22, $1 of property taxes leveraged nearly $50 in state and federal funds. (This does not include extensive NRCS contributions, which provide in-kind services and grant programs at the RCD’s invitation.)

FUNDING TYPE OVER 15 YEARS

FUNDING SOURCES
2022

While all of our work is carried out in partnership with others, one particular partner bears mention here.

The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service was formed in 1935 in response to the devastating Dust Bowl crisis. Companion conservation districts were created across the nation to identify local needs and priorities and to encourage local participation in its programs.

In 1939, San Mateo County’s visionary farmers created the first conservation district in California and one of the first in the nation, and we’ve been partners ever since. The NRCS provides experts—soil scientists, agronomists, biologists, and engineers, among others—who bring technical assistance and federal cost-share programs to the community.

PARTNERS

In addition to hundreds of private farms and landowners, we are proud to have partnered with the following agencies, organizations, and individuals:

FUNDERS

In addition to individual donors, the following agencies and organizations have generously supported the RCD’s work over the last 15 years.

AWARDS AND ACCOLADES

The awards listed here represent some of the recognition we have received for our work over just the last 15 years.

Thanks and Acknowledgments

We would like to thank RCD staff whose persistence, passion, and commitment to service are behind each accomplishment in this report. We are grateful to the stalwart volunteers who have served on our board of directors, guiding the organization with heart and a deep sense of duty to our community and the environment. None of the accomplishments in this report would have been possible without the funders and elected officials who saw our promise and supported us along the way. We hope the exceptional individuals and organizations who partner with us see themselves on these pages and feel our gratitude for what we have achieved together.

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