WEST LAKE COUNTY — A newly formed local nonprofit which recently donated a combined $20,000 to two public service organizations in Lake County plans to work to improve fire prevention practices and support at-risk youth.
Fire ecologist and native Lake County resident Jared Hendricks is director of the Benmore Valley Project, a freshly-minted nonprofit organization based in Benmore Valley on a property owned by Robert Adelman, who is the project’s founder and board chair. Benmore Valley is located near the highest point of Highway 175 between Hopland and Lakeport.
The BVP, which was registered as a nonprofit organization in October 2018, plans to “develop community scale fire protection programs focused on fire ecology, ecological restoration, and land stewardship,” according to its mission statement. Youth programs and Native American community involvement will be emphasized as well.
“We want to be taking the lead for future fire prevention and ecology work,” said Hendricks, “and interlace youth programs into that.”
Among its first tasks will be applications to two Cal Fire grants—a “forest health” grant focused on improving forested habitats and increasing carbon sequestration, and a fire prevention grant.
According to Adelman, the BVP has enlisted ecologist Larry Ray to help with the applications. College students will be paired with mentors to learn about grant writing, and will then be tasked with implementing the projects they get funding for. Hendricks said Ray will be “our lead consultant on the Cal Fire grants.”
Hendricks said Thursday that he hopes these projects will become “a clearinghouse for information for other projects,” stressing that “we’ve absolutely got to transition to community and regional scale fuel reduction and fire breaks” in Lake County and beyond. He noted that Benmore Valley will be the location for most of the fire prevention work the BVP will undertake.
“It’s the last corner of the county that’s still got insane fuel loads left,” he said. Hendricks also hopes to integrate BVP’s work with similar fire prevention being done by the Bureau of Land Management south of the Benmore Valley.
Hendricks plans to develop an educational database of information about the fire ecology work the BVP completes in the coming years. “Looking at it from a modeling standpoint,” he said these projects will “become demonstration models” for similar projects.
Another part of the BVP will be concerned with supporting at-risk youth in Lake County by offering rides to and from extracurricular events for children who have no other way to get there.
Adelman added that a “youth cycling program” will be included in the BVP’s activities. “We’re already in partnership with Jeff Cramer at Main Street Bicycles,” he said. They are ordering a variety of bikes and equipment to outfit kids with, and rides guided by locals like Mountain Bike Hall-of-Famer and cycling champion Victor Vincente of America.
On Dec. 21 and Dec. 26, Hendricks handed $10,000 checks to the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center and the Lakeport Fire Protection District.
LASC Board Chair Lynn Schlapkohl wrote that the senior center was “deeply grateful for the recognition of our services” by the “Benmore Valley Project community benefit consortium,” and recognized the donation as an acknowledgement of the center as “an active partner in Lake County’s long-term disaster recovery and environmental husbandry efforts.”
Lakeport Fire Chief Doug Hutchison thanked Hendricks as he received the LFD’s donation, saying that the district planned on using the money to fix badly weathered flooring at the district’s downtown Lakeport station and its satellite Station 52 in North Lakeport.
Asked why the funds wouldn’t be put toward remedying recent staffing cuts at the district, Hutchison said that the dollar amount of the BVP’s check would not be sufficient for “even a month of salary plus benefits” for a staff firefighter.
The donations had been funded by a pledge from large-scale cannabis cultivator and manufacturer Loudpack—a tenant on Adelman’s Benmore Valley Ranch property actively growing four acres of outdoor cannabis—as an expression of gratitude to the efforts of local fire departments and Cal Fire during the Mendocino Complex Fire, which had threatened Loudpack’s farm.
In September, Loudpack had initially directed its donation to Cal Fire Battalion Chief Greg Bertelli who declined the money, suggesting it be put toward local organizations.
Loudpack CEO John Cochran said Thursday that the company is grateful to the LFD. “We really appreciate the local fire department for all their help,” he said.
“We wanted to thank everyone for having us in the county, but really wanted to thank the fire department for saving the farm.”
Not only were these donations funded by Loudpack, but the BVP as a whole hopes to be largely supported in the next few years by ongoing pledges from Loudpack, and other cannabis companies like Northern California-based cannabis grower CannaCraft, headed by CEO Dennis Hunter, a Willits native.
Hunter said Thursday that his company’s pledge—which stands at $20,000 to the BVP per site developed into a cannabis farm by CannaCraft—is “about giving back to the community, and cannabis has a stigma around it that we really have to overcome.” Hunter added that “we’re not there just to make money. We want to create jobs, and we want to create opportunities.”
According to Adelman, the BVP could have a total of $440,000 in cannabis industry-sourced funding if currently planned farmland purchases are permitted for cannabis growing operations.
Editor’s note: a previous version of this article stated that ecologist Larry Ray works on behalf the Lake County Conservation District for the BVP. In his work for the BVP, Ray works as a private consultant.
