w a t c h
D IABLO Save Mount Diablo
Protecting the Mountain Since 1971
Breathing New Life into Mangini Ranch
Spring 2008 No. 45
SMD Protects Irish Canyon & Marsh Creek-I
By Seth Adams, Director of Land Programs
Both purchases completed on November 27, 2007
The Mangini Ranch’s 208 acres are expansive by any measure but when you add in creeks, ridges and canyons, woodland and chaparral, it becomes a place where you can spend hours. Some things, like Galindo Creek or a patch of rare desert olive, are obvious but if you simply follow the old ranch roads you’ll miss some of the property’s special features. There are several hidden springs and creek branches, wonderful groves of flowering buckeye, and increasing numbers of wildlife, some of them quite rare.
The holidays came early for Save Mount Diablo—on November 27th, just before our 36th Anniversary. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation granted SMD $756,100 to complete our 320 acre Irish Canyon purchase, near the city of Clayton. The property’s purchase price was $1.344 million. The grant not only completed the purchase of the property a year early, it includes funds for urgently needed stewardship that will lay the groundwork for long-term creek and oak woodland restoration. The grant is also meant to encourage SMD to speed up its preservation efforts in the Marsh Creek-Morgan Territory region northeast of Mt. Diablo.
Save Mount Diablo is cleaning up the property, changing its management, building new trails and restoring habitat, so that the public can enjoy more of these beautiful areas.
Boundaries, Springs & Thoughtful Change
We completed the Mangini Ranch and Mount Diablo from Lime Ridge (Scott Hein) purchase of Mangini “This grant will help in January 2007 and immediately began making changes. Each of Save Mount Diablo to permanently protect the 320 acre Irish Canyon our properties is assigned a volunteer steward, from our Stewardparcel, part of the Black Diamond Mines/Mt. Diablo Open Space ship Committee, who Corridor in Contra Costa visits monthly to check for Save Mount Diablo received a $756,100 grant County,” said Helen Kim, problems. (Such as the small Chief Program Officer for the from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation pot farm we discovered and San Francisco Bay Area Proto complete purchase of Irish Canyon’s 320 acres. cleaned up while we were gram of the Gordon and Betty purchasing the ranch). We The foundation grant is the largest in Moore Foundation, “This is make it clear to our carean important acquisition bethe Save Mount Diablo’s history. taker and neighbors that all cause it supports a landscapenatural features, including coyotes, ground squirrels and fallen wood level strategic effort to protect open space surrounding Mt. Diablo.” are protected. “The San Francisco Bay Area is renowned for its beautiful landLast spring we began fencing the property. Rancher John Ginochio, scapes,” said Kim, “however, during the next 30 years an estimated our caretaker, grazes the property to reduce fire danger but missing 400,000 acres of open space are at risk from suburban development. and old boundary fences meant we couldn’t (continued on page 6) (continued on page 5)
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