The Redwood Forest of St. Helena Project (“Project”) proposes to plant, grow and sustainably harvest approximately 3,000 coast redwood trees Sequoia sempervirens on 10 acres of land currently located within the City of St. Helena’s (“City”) wastewater spray fields. This project would help reduce local greenhouse gases by sequestering large amounts of carbon and other greenhouse gases within the forest, producing more oxygen for Napa Valley, offering a beautiful forest setting, recreating a forest ecosystem, providing shared revenue from timber sales, and a future community forest for St. Helena.

The City currently uses approximately 100 acres of land on the south side of their Wastewater Treatment Plant (“WWTP”) for disposal of effluent. This land has been used for decades as an effluent spray field and remains fallow and unproductive. If approved, this Project proposes to reforest a portion of the fields that are not currently used for effluent for future timber harvest, beneficial carbon sequestration, spray field buffer zone to nearby vineyards, walking trails with connectivity to a City-wide plan, and forest ecosystem restoration.

As a young man I moved to Southern California and visited Santa Clara for a swim meet in the summer of 1977. This was the first time that I had ever seen a coast redwood tree and was amazed at the size and beauty of these trees. After pestering my host family with many questions, they took me to Big Basin State Park where I feel in love with groves of old growth redwoods that I would never have able to imagine possible.

During the 1980s I worked in San Francisco and read an article about a small Northern California community (what I later learned to be Graton) that used WWTP effluent to irrigate a grove of redwoods and was fascinated by the idea. Decades later when I learned that the City of St. Helena had a 100-acre effluent spray field, I approached Mayor Del Britton (now deceased) about the idea of using the effluent to grow a grove of redwood trees. Mayor Britton thought that this was a great idea and authorized the experimental planting.

In 2012, with guidance from Dr. William Libby, and Nicholas Kent, RPF, an experimental redwood forest was planted on 1.5 acres of the City’s effluent spray fields, and now consist of approximately 450 trees, many more than 30 feet tall and 12 inches in diameter at breast height. Since the initial planting, Dr. Libby has offered several special coast redwood clones for the project. These include clones of the “Dyersville Giant” which was thought to be the tallest redwood for many years and Korbel KT clones which are a special redwood with most likely fewer chromosomes than the 6 normally found in redwoods (humans have only 2 chromosomes). The Korbel KT clone was discovered near Korbel, California, and trademarked for Christmas trees. As you can see in the photo, they grow very differently than a normal redwood and only reach a maximum height of about 80 feet. We also have clones of “Luna” redwoods which are from trees grown from seed after orbiting the earth in Apollo 14.

Over the last 8 years a forest ecosystem has been established, initially with invertebrates occupying the redwood seedlings and soils below, then moles, voles, and gophers moved in tunneling throughout the fields attracting raptors and mammals hunting for their next meal. Today, many birds build spring-time nest and barn owls and other raptors roost in the trees.

There have also been challenges to creating a forest from redwood seedlings that normally grow under the protection of mature trees. Winter temperatures on the floor of the Napa Valley regularly dip below 20 degrees Fahrenheit and some redwood cultivars cannot tolerate this and die. We have also lost trees to gophers eating through the roots system, weeds overtaking new plantings, and voles girdling around the base of the trees. Coyotes also like to regularly chew up the drip system.

Through these challenges we have learned so much about how to better protect the young seedlings until they can take care of themselves. The project has been extremely rewarding so far and we look forward to the opportunity of creating additional forest where none currently exist.

We are waiting for approval from the St. Helena City Council to move forward with this next phase. Once approved, we will be working with Sustainable St. Helena and Napa Resource Conservation District to plan and plant the expanded forests. For more information, please email me: pasmuth.usaows@comcast.net