Sharp-eyed motorists have noticed a name change on a long white office building on Healdsburg Avenue, just a quick stroll away from the Quail and Condor bakery. The colors are still blue and white but the Bright Event Rentals sign is gone, and in its place the bold letters proclaim Russian Riverkeeper, now in its umpteenth home in Healdsburg.
“We’ve been all over this town,” said Don McEnhill, the long-time executive director of the environmental nonprofit. “We’ve been out on West Side Road at Hop Kiln. And on Matheson Street. We were actually right on the other side of the creek at Plum Industrial Park for our last office.”
Although when fully staffed the Russian Riverkeeper office holds 16 or so, it’s quiet this morning. Only five people are in the building, including McEnhill and Rob Schwenker, who steps into the ED role this month.
Schwenker clutches a paper cup of coffee—his flight from LAX arrived only an hour or so ago at Sonoma County Airport, and he’s still getting his feet on the ground. His immediate previous position was as executive director of the Santa Monica History Museum, and prior to that he headed an organization that brought guest speakers to schools. His CV in the “sustainability space,” as he put it, is brief.
“One of the things that Don recently said to me was, ‘You are our core demographic,’” the 44-year-old said. “‘You are someone who cares about conservation, cares about the environment, knows that we are collectively experiencing climate change and wants to do something about that.’”
But Schwenker acknowledges he’s someone who “doesn’t have a tremendous amount of subject-area depth of knowledge.” He admits he’s never been on a river trip, never floated down the Russian from the Alexander Valley Bridge to Memorial Beach or engaged in any of the other aquatic adventures that pulled many into river conservation efforts.
Regardless, the new highly visible space for the Russian Riverkeeper offices is a boost in public awareness of the 30-year-old environmental nonprofit. “I suspect that when tourist season picks up here, and I don’t really know when that is, I suspect we’re gonna get a decent amount of people who come back here looking for tours,” Schwenker said.
“We’ve already had people thinking we were Russian River Adventures,” McEnhill said. “That’s okay. They’re all looking for the river, and we know the way.”
Riverkeepers
McEnhill, now 61, and the Riverkeepers have plenty of past accomplishments they want to preserve and goals they want to accomplish, so “river miles” was not high on their wish list for a new ED. Bringing in this energetic younger executive was prompted by McEnhill’s desire to focus on policy and to have a good leadership team into the future.
“Quite frankly I’ve watched a lot of organizations wait too long to implement a succession plan,” McEnhill said. He also gamely acknowledged that because of all his policy efforts, “there was a little bit of a bottleneck. I had just too many things on my plate.”
Among the policy priorities that McEnhill cited are groundwater recharge projects, protecting water quality, protecting flows in the river and making sure water is equitably shared. “It’s pretty clear that our current water rights system over-allocates,” he said. “I mean, when you look at the paper water rights, they equal six to seven times the available water in any given year.”
McEnhill points out that currently, “the way we manage the Russian River, there really is no water right for the environment.” In other words, the farmers, jurisdictions and agencies all claim water rights, but nothing is left for the river itself.
Russian Riverkeeper is one of about 400 “keeper” organizations worldwide, including the seminal Hudson Riverkeeper, founded in 1983 to keep an eye on river cleanup and sustainability. Now part of the worldwide Waterkeeper Alliance, the “riverkeeper” name has been alternately boosted and tainted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an early supporter in New York (where his father was a U.S. Senator), but who over time lost his luster within the organization.
“He was the bright, shiny object in the organization, and was the president until he got booted out,” McEnhill said of Kennedy. In 2017 Kennedy was fired by an overwhelming majority of Keeper members, McEnhill recalled. “I mean, we are a science-based organization, and to have someone espousing anti-science views is unacceptable,” he said.
Steelhead Festival
While McEnhill is not Russian Riverkeeper’s first executive director, his 23 years in the post gives him some seniority and, among other things, a direct link to the big water event coming up this weekend, the Lake Sonoma Steelhead Festival.
McEnhill shows off a framed proclamation, decorated by Old English typeface and a vocabulary full of “Whereas… .” It’s an official California Assembly Resolution, recognizing February 2007 as Steelhead Month in Sonoma County and urging “all Californians to join in the celebration.”
“We, along with Redwood Empire Trout Unlimited, actually started the whole thing,” said McEnhill, also acknowledging Hotel Healdsburg’s support. “We held it in the Healdsburg Plaza for four years, and it very much outgrew that little space. We took over Plaza Street, we took over Center Street; it still wasn’t enough. And the city said, ‘Sorry, go find a new place.’”
Fortunately a fish hatchery was conveniently located nearby, just 12 miles up Dry Creek Road at Lake Sonoma. Sixteen years after it started, the Lake Sonoma Steelhead Festival will return this coming weekend.
Most vendor booths were snatched up weeks ago, including 15 food booths from Bear Republic to the Wurst, tour operators from fly fishing guides to mechanical bull rides, and water and environmental agencies throughout the county and state. Plus live music, of course.
Between 8,000 and 12,000 people are expected for this one-day, midwinter festival. If tradition and prediction hold true, there should be nice sunny weather on Saturday, after an extended period of rain. But rain is what happens in the house of steelhead, so to speak, and Dry Creek should be flowing with plenty of water so that the steelhead and Coho salmon can return, migrating up the creek toward the hatchery where they were spawned.
“You know, we always focus on salmon and steelhead, but those are only two of thousands of organisms that live in the river,” McEnhill said. “They’re all just a giant, interdependent ecosystem.”
More information at russianriverkeeper.org. The Lake Sonoma Steelhead Festival will be held on Saturday, Feb. 8, from 10am to 4pm. Free.
