Preservation Ranch buy faces key vote

The California Coastal Conservancy is expected to approve a key piece of funding this week for the acquisition of the controversial Preservation Ranch project in northern Sonoma County.
The acquisition “will put to rest the most contentious land use debate in Sonoma County,” Coastal Conservancy Project Manager Karyn Gear in a report to the Conservancy’s board of directors who are meeting in Oakland today (April 18) for a vote on a Coastal Conservancy grant.
West County Supervisor Efren Carrillo, Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District General Manager Bill Keene and other environmental supporters plan to be there to make the case for the purchase of Preservation Ranch where a proposed timber-to-vineyard conversion project has clashed with environmental opponents for nearly ten years.
The Coastal Conservancy grant would contribute $10 million to the $24.5 million purchase of the property from CalPers, the California Public Employees Retirement System, and halt the proposed conversion of up to 1,800 acres of forest and grasslands to vineyards.
 Other funding includes $4 million from the Sonoma County Open Space District and $6 million from the Conservation Fund, the national non-profit conservation group that will acquire the property and manage it as a working forest.
Future timber harvests and the sale of carbon offsets, in conjunction with California’s carbon cap-and-trade legislation, are projected to supply revenues that would be shared with the Coastal Conservancy, the state agency established to protect coastal resources in partnership with local governments, nonprofit organizations and private landowners.
Staff projections estimate the Coastal Conservancy could be getting $750,000 per year in carbon credit revenue from the property starting in 2017 or sooner through a revenue sharing agreement with the Conservation Fund.
“If the carbon market proceeds as anticipated,” said Gear’s report, “it is anticipated that the proceeds from carbon offset sales will exceed the basic operation and management costs of the property.”
Projections estimate that if properly managed, the Preservation Ranch forest could sequester more than 2.4 million tons of carbon over a ten-year period. In potential carbon offsets that could translate to as many as 1,800,000 state Air Resource Board Offset Credits (ARBOCs) that can be bought and sold on the state’s new carbon credit market in which polluters can buy carbon offsets to help fight global warming. One ARBOC represents one metric ton of greenhouse gas emissions.
  Under the revenue sharing agreement, the Conservancy will receive more than 62 percent of any net revenues from the sale of ARBOCs, which are now selling for as much as $14.50 apiece, according to business news sources.
  In looking at other potential forest conservation projects that could have carbon sequestration benefits, “Preservation Ranch rose to the top,” said Gear’s report recommending approval of the grant. “First and foremost, it is a critical conservation project in its own right, and is imminently threatened with conversion to other uses. Second, the scale of the project is such that it has the potential to provide significant carbon sequestration (and resulting revenue). Third, the project proponent (the Conservation Fund) has broad experience in developing and managing working forests and carbon sequestration projects and is, in fact, the largest provider of forest carbon offsets in California.”
  The Conservation Fund already owns and manages 55,000 acres of working forests in Mendocino County, 38,000 of which are contiguous with Preservation Ranch, said Gear. The Fund “has verified and sold carbon credits in the voluntary carbon market since 2008, and thus has the necessary experience to develop a carbon sequestration project on Preservation Ranch.”
The proposal before the state Coastal Conservancy this week also mentions the possible sale of about 1,000 acres that are “physically disjunct” from the main forestland, including an existing 17-acre vineyard.
The Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District (SCAPOSD) funding will obtain a conservation easement which would retire approximately 160 separate existing parcels on the site between Healdsburg and Annapolis. Without the conservation easement the CalPers plan calls for the subdivision of the ranch into 60 rural residential estate parcels.