{"id":1434,"date":"2026-06-09T17:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T17:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/?p=1434"},"modified":"2026-06-09T19:05:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T19:05:38","slug":"creating-living-laboratory-farmland-repurposing-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/2026\/06\/09\/creating-living-laboratory-farmland-repurposing-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating\u00a0a Living Laboratory through Land Repurposing\u00a0in California"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When it was first conceived, California\u2019s Multibenefit Land Repurposing Program (MLRP)<\/a> was envisioned to be one of many initiatives needed to help landowners and communities adapt to less groundwater pumping and prevent the San Joaquin Valley from turning into a dust bowl of fallowed fields. Instead, the idea was to fund projects that strategically transition farmland to other uses that deliver a range of new benefits, from wildlife habitat to community open spaces to low-impact solar farms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four years and two rounds of funding later, MLRP is delivering some additional benefits that proponents of the program (including EDF) never imagined. The Tule Basin Land & Water Conservation Trust\u2019s Capinero Creek Restoration Project is one of the most inspiring examples of these unexpected positive results, from the early return of an endangered lizard to high school students winning a scholarship for college. 
 
In April, MLRP grantees, partners, and conservationists gathered in Pixley for a tour to see firsthand how the Capinero Creek Project has evolved into a living laboratory featuring several experiments that will provide valuable lessons for future land repurposing and water conservations projects, and I\u2019m excited some highlights from that tour here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A model of native habitat restoration<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So far, the MLRP has approved 23 projects covering 4,800 acres <\/a>of land, equal to the size of more than four Golden Gate Parks or about seven square miles.\u00a0The\u00a0Capinero\u00a0Creek Restoration project sits on 467 of those acres on the site of a former dairy farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A partnership between The Nature Conservancy and the Tule Basin Land & Water Conservation Trust, the multiphase project started in 2021 with funding from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Union Pacific and Wildlife Conservation Board. The MLRP served as a perfect opportunity to fund some of the most unique aspects of the project, including cost-effective native habitat restoration to improve groundwater flows and soil quality, wildlife monitoring, and community science efforts. The goal of the project is to restore native habitat and attract and protect threatened and endangered species in the South San Joaquin Valley. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abby Hart and Daniel Toews from the Nature Conservancy and Nick Reed-Krase from the Tule Basin Land\u00a0and\u00a0Water Conservation Trust led visitors through the multiple phases of the project. Phase 1\u00a0of the restoration project\u00a0focuses on planting alkali scrub habitat\u00a0like native shrubs, grasses\u00a0and wildflowers, which require significantly less water than non-natives.\u00a0\u00a0River Partners has also been involved in Phase 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Daniel
The Nature Conservancy’s Daniel Toews shows a map of the Capinero Creek project during a project tour. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Toews,\u00a0a strategic\u00a0restoration\u00a0project\u00a0manager with The Nature Conservancy, explained how\u00a0the project\u00a0team\u00a0is\u00a0using an experimental approach\u00a0that aims\u00a0to determine the best mix of native seeds, best density of planting and most effective irrigation frequencies to establish new vegetation on the former grazing land.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While those experiments are still underway, there has already been one surprise: the arrival of a\u00a0blunt-nosed\u00a0leopard\u00a0lizard, an endangered species, six months after planting and months earlier than expected. The site also has seen the return of the\u00a0crotch’s\u00a0bumble bee, burrowing owls\u00a0and\u00a0kangaroo\u00a0rats.\u00a0Toews describes kangaroo rats as the \u201cfarmers\u201d of natural habitat in the San Joaquin Desert\u00a0\u2014\u00a0ecosystem engineers that disproportionately shape the landscape by turning soil, managing vegetation, and creating burrows used by other fossorial animals like lizards and toads. They are also a key prey species for raptors, owls, and\u202fother\u202fcarnivores, including the endangered San Joaquin kit fox.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"blunt-nosed
The endangered blunt-nosed leopard lizard was found on the Capinera Creek restoration site. Source: Ken-ichi Ueda, CC BY 4.0 https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This effort includes acoustic monitoring to compare wildlife diversity in restoration zones compared to fallowed areas, which can help us further understand the benefits of restoring fallowed lands. Wildlife cameras help\u00a0monitor\u00a0species distribution across the site, specifically of the\u00a0blunt-nosed\u00a0leopard\u00a0lizard and\u00a0kangaroo\u00a0rats.\u00a0 The team\u00a0has partnered with UC Davis to conduct DNA tests to determine whether\u00a0kangaroo\u00a0rats\u00a0discovered on site are an endangered species variety, which have not been\u00a0observed\u00a0in the area for more than 30 years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tule Basin Land\u00a0and\u00a0Water Conservation Trust\u00a0has\u00a0an agreement with the irrigation district to use water only as necessary, in keeping with one major goal of MLRP: to reduce groundwater pumping, as required by California\u2019s\u00a0Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA)<\/a>,\u00a0Reed-Krase\u00a0from the Tule Trust\u00a0explained. As part of SGMA reporting, the trust\u00a0confirmed that across\u00a080 acres,\u00a0groundwater pumping is well\u00a0under\u00a020 acre-feet per year \u2014 an accomplishment that drew applause from our tour participants. (An acre-foot of water is approximately\u00a0326,000 gallons, which is the amount of water used by two to three average households per year.)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experimenting with landowners <\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Similar to all MLRP projects, the Capinero Creek Project involves a collaborative partnership with local landowners. On a field that will be replanted as part of Phase 2, Trevor Freitas, a local rancher, has brought 45 cows to graze on the land and help prepare it for future restoration.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freitas\u00a0explained\u00a0how he collaborated with the Tule Trust to experiment with\u00a0virtual fencing for grazing cows, which wear special solar-powered collars around their necks,\u00a0similar to\u00a0the electric fences homeowners sometimes get for their dogs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"cow
Solar-powered collars emit a noise to let cows know to turn around when they reach the virtual fence on land slated for future restoration, eliminating the need for expensive temporary physical fencing.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWithin 24 hours the cows were trained to stay out of the boundary,\u201d said\u00a0Freitas, who estimated the collars cost one-fourth\u00a0of the cost of a\u00a0physical\u00a0fence\u00a0surrounding the Phase 1 restoration site.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collars also monitor\u00a0movement patterns and health and have been used in a trial near Yellowstone National Park, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultivating future scientists and water leaders<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Community science is another pillar of the\u00a0Capinero\u00a0Creek Restoration Project. Students from\u00a0Alpaugh High School have\u00a0helped\u00a0monitor\u00a0air,\u00a0water\u00a0and soil quality as well as biodiversity sampling.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some students turned their research into a project that won top honors at the Tulare County Office of Education Science and Engineering Fair. Two of those students went on to present their project at the California Science and Engineering Fair, winning second place and scholarships to college!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This community science success story was a great learning experience for me. Like others, I tend to think of MLRP projects delivering benefits only for neighboring communities. Education on project sites provides another layer of opportunity and community benefits that early supporters of MLRP had not imagined.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cOne of the biggest blessings of MLRP has been building local capacity and creating positions in the local community that\u00a0offer an alternative to agricultural jobs and are needed to support land repurposing. Capacity building can be a little invisible, but it is so important.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 Abby Hart, The Nature Conservancy<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The future of the land repurposing in California<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While the Capinero Creek project cannot singlehandedly reduce groundwater use in the state, it is an example of what can be done through partnerships, innovative funding mechanisms and creative thinking. It is also a large enough project that it could help inform, simplify and even accelerate habitat restoration at scale in the San Joaquin Valley.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bringing other grantees to the site allowed TNC and the Tule Trust to share lessons learned and\u00a0ultimately aid\u00a0current and future MLRP projects. And most importantly, it shows that MLRP and other land transitioning efforts work, hopefully inspiring more funding for MLRP in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it was first conceived, California\u2019s Multibenefit Land Repurposing Program (MLRP) was envisioned to be one of many initiatives needed to help landowners and communities adapt to less groundwater pumping and prevent the San Joaquin Valley from turning into a dust bowl of fallowed fields. Instead, the idea was to fund projects that strategically transition farmland to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127579,"featured_media":1449,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,22,21,9,1],"tags":[15,34,17,38,26],"coauthors":[128],"class_list":["post-1434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-california","category-community","category-groundwater","category-land-repurposing","category-uncategorized","tag-agriculture","tag-california-water","tag-drought","tag-groundwater","tag-sgma"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127579"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1434"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1454,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434\/revisions\/1454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1434"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/waterfront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}