The nonprofit conservation group Save Mount Diablo has bought the Ginochio Schwendel Ranch, a 98-acre property along the Marsh Creek wildlife corridor between Clayton and Brentwood.
The announcement came Thursday, just over a week after the California Wildlife Conservation Board provided a $728,000 grant toward the acquisition project, covering about half of the $1.455 million total cost.
Save Mount Diablo said it was the first grant it’s ever received from the board.
“We are immensely grateful to the Ginochio family and our supporters for helping make this important land acquisition possible,” Save Mount Diablo executive director Ted Clement said in a statement. “We are also thrilled and thankful to have officially started a conservation partnership with the California Wildlife Conservation Board by working together to protect the strategic Ginochio Schwendel Ranch.”
The nonprofit said the Ginochio Schwendel Ranch has very high conservation value, especially as a strategic piece of the Marsh Creek watershed containing rare volcanic habitat.
The group said the property is adjacent to its Marsh Creek 5 property, a 7.4-acre site that has a wildlife undercrossing of Marsh Creek Road for wildlife and part of Marsh Creek, which it calls “Contra Costa County’s second longest and most undisturbed creek.”
The conservation group owns several nearby properties, including 15 protected miles of the 33-mile creek.
“Marsh Creek is a vital wildlife corridor in an arid region,” Save Mount Diablo said in the statement. “Piece by piece, for decades, we have been working to protect more and more of this riparian habitat, which stretches through eastern Contra Costa County, connecting Mount Diablo to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.”
The Ginochio Schwendel Ranch features unusual volcanic geologic formations that support rare and endemic native plants. The formations can be seen as steep mushroom-like domes made of high-silica igneous rock, which resists erosion more than worn softer sedimentary rock surrounding them.
Not only are volcanic domes rare in the area, but they retain more water than surrounding areas, helping better support an array of rare wildlife and plants.
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