The nonprofit Bull Valley Agricultural Center promotes land stewardship and preservation for agricultural, educational, and recreational uses that respect habitat, connect people with nature, and build community resources.
OUR STORY
Alarmed by the decline of honeybee populations, Bull Valley Agricultural Center (BVAC) founder Earl Flewellen sought to establish a bee yard away from the impacts of pesticides and conventional agriculture, joining a worldwide effort to support sustainable beekeeping and farming practices. In 2011, the endeavor led him to Port Costa where his vision fell on receptive ears with a local property owner who offered up her nearby land. The two formed a lasting bond, embarking on a 5-year odyssey—a remarkable collaboration that drew townsfolk, partners, and friends to join in on what was to become a community restoration.
Holding solid to the belief that personal and community health is rooted in a deep sense of place and a connection to nature, Flewellen set out to engage folks in breathing life back into the town’s historic businesses and to protect nearby lands from degradation. Supportive community members and friends came forward, pitching in to revive the town’s historic Burlington Hotel & cafe along with the beloved old restaurant next door. Opening in 2012 as The Bull Valley Roadhouse the restaurant sourced directly from responsible farms and producers in the region and quickly became a Bay Area favorite known for its commitment to sustainable agriculture.
With these projects finally holding their own, the time was right to focus on giving back to the surrounding land and community. To these ends, the Bull Valley Agricultural Center was founded in 2015, and donations were raised to acquire the land where the bees were happily thriving—a first step towards preserving that land, protecting it from relentless vandalism and refuse dumping, and securing its future as a community resource.
Together, Flewellen, BVAC, and their partnering organization, The Field Semester, are embarking on what they hope is the beginning of a long future of giving back to their community and contributing to a greener, healthier world.
What We Do
Current Onsite Efforts
ANTI-DUMPING MEASURES
In 2015, after a load of more than 80 tires was dumped on the land in clear view, we resolved to stop all illegal dumping on the property. As an immediate response to this violation, we decided to fence the property to limit ease of access for dumping. Though this was a hard decision to make, the measure was very successful. The fencing, joined with the vigilance of friends and neighbors who enjoy strolls and rides around the property perimeter, has brought a complete halt of dumping activity—a good first step to improving the health and good stewardship of this land.
REFUSE CLEANUP
Friends and volunteers continue to help us in an ongoing effort to undo decades of refuse dumping. To date more than 300 cubic yards of refuse including furniture, appliances, tires, construction debris, and household garbage have been removed from the land.
TREE MANAGEMENT
Consecutive years of drought have stressed California trees, especially pines. When some pines reach a certain threshold of moisture deprivation, they succumb to beetle infestation and die as a result. Dying pines lining the parcel have been cropped, removing all limbs and tops, while leaving the remains to serve as perches for birds and food sources for wildlife.
SPILLWAY MAINTENANCE
To keep water flowing freely from the reservoir into the creek diversion covert during rains, restaurant staff and BVAC volunteers perform an annual cleanup of the reservoir spillway, hauling out all leaves, tree limbs, and other detritus that makes its way into the channel.
Future Project Goals
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING
BVAC is partnering with an educational endeavor called The Field Semester, a program aimed at providing a rigorous semester of learning to scholastically-motivated high school students, immersing them in nature and sustainability while they pursue their regular, demanding academic curriculum. The two organizations hope to team up with The Port Costa Conservation Society to host this body of inspired learners and to build out a roster of extra services, programming, and amenities that will directly benefit the immediate community.
COMMUNITY ACCESS PROJECTS
With the land being a historic part of Port Costa’s history, its reservoir having once supplied water to the steam ships and locomotives converging at the old port and having once served as the town swimming hole (replete with diving platform, concessions, and picnic areas), BVAC hopes to restore the land as a community resource with thoughtful focus on how recreation and responsible stewardship overlap.
Perimeter walk path: Many town residents enjoy long walks around the reservoir. Those strolls have been limited to walking along the shoulders of the street encircling the property. BVAC will endeavor to improve existing paths to provide residents strolling with children and pets a more intimate engagement with the land and a safer alternative to walking along the street.
Garden Spaces and Picnic spots: To augment town gathering spaces for quiet moments away or to spend time with friends and family, BVAC will have meditative garden spaces and picnic spots where one can sit in a sunny spot to read a book, or sprawl out on a blanket for a picnic.
Water Access: In an effort to keep the land accessible to the immediate community, we’ll strive to make paths available for enjoyment of all aspects of the property, including the reservoir’s shores, in a manner compatible with its other shared uses and habitat stewardship goals.
COMMUNITY COLLABORATIONS
As BVAC’s volunteer and member base grows, we will hope to work directly with the community to undertake projects that directly benefit the town. Be it flower and tree plantings along roads, or beach and parking lot cleanups, BVAC will aim to be a community player with a commitment to making life better for everyone it serves.
Who We Are
Founder
EARL FLEWELLEN
Former co-owner of The Bull Valley Roadhouse, Earl has worked since 2011 to keep bees thriving in Port Costa and to help bring town historic assets back to life. Through those endeavors, he and his partners employed over 45 people who've helped pitch in, most of whom live around the Port Costa and Crockett vicinity.
He hopes BVAC’s endeavors will help return the generosity he's seen from the people of this community and benefit a larger audience of people striving to make a better world. Along with his partnering organizations (see below), he aims to see BVAC’s damaged watershed parcel restored to health and transformed into a vibrant campus where high-chool students participate, hands-on, in that transformation and building community around this long-term metamorphosis, locally and beyond.
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS
THE FIELD SEMESTER
The Field Semester is an immersive semester program that reaches high-school students at a crucial moment in their personal and academic development. Their innovative program will bring 45 high-school juniors and seniors from diverse communities to live, work, and learn together on the land. Over sixteen weeks, through an exciting mix of intellectual study and experiential learning, students at The Field Semester will deepen their understanding of the social and biological ecosystems we share. Their days will be spent engaged in rigorous academic classes with lots of field-work, restoring and stewarding the watershed in which they will live, and managing the day-to-day operations of the campus including growing food, cooking, and maintaining the facilities. We aim to equip graduates with the tools they need to thrive as just, sustainability-minded leaders in every community they call home. Learn more at fieldsemester.org
PORT COSTA CONSERVATION SOCIETY
Preserving for public benefit 83 Acres East of Port Costa as a wildlife preserve and the historic 1911 Port Costa school building which is on the National Register of Historic Places as a historical resource for community, civic and recreational uses. Learn more about this organization at portcosta.com.
News + Events
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PAST EVENTS
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3rd Annual Solstice Bonfire
{This past event occurred on december 21st, 2018}
Port Costa friends, family, and BVAC supporters came together again for a warm cup of cheer on the longest night of the year! Fun was had by all around the roaring bonfire, with hot chocolate, roasted marshmallows, and good music featuring prominently. What a way to close out 2018!
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3rd Annual Spillway Cleanup and Graffiti Removal
{THis past event occurred on November 15th, 2018}
Our 3rd annual spillway cleanup was as necessary as ever, and sped by with the help of our talented volunteers. Each year, BVAC removes debris from the reservoir spillway, ensuring the free flow of winter runoff and preventing blockages as water flows through the site. We also clean up any graffiti that has accumulated. This year was particularly meaningful as the cleanup took place in the midst of the smoke-filled air brought on by the devastating Camp Fire in Butte county. Our dedicated staff and volunteers were committed to the cleanup in spite of the smoke, and we couldn’t be more grateful.
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2nd annual Solstice bOnfire
{This past event occurred on December 21st, 2017}
On Thursday, December 21st, we held our 2nd annual Solstice Bonfire! All enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate the year coming to a close, and we kept warm around the fire with good company, good cheer, and good hot chocolate.
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2nd Annual Spillway Cleanup and Graffiti Removal
{with Volunteers from Patagonia, Inc.’s SF Store}
{This past event occurred on OCTOBER 21st, 2017}
BVAC hosted its second annual work party to prepare the pond’s spillway for winter rains. Volunteers and employees from the San Francisco Patagonia store joined us to help with debris cleanup and graffiti removal and went way beyond the call of duty! Not only did we clean up the spillway and remove graffiti, the Patagonia crew was super motivated and got us all excited to keep going with the work! By the end of the day, we'd also dug out decades worth of silt and debris from the catch basins of the spillway structure. And many went home with vintage glass marbles as souvenirs of their work (scores of which had found their way down into the basins from
kids playing in the spillway over the decades).
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"Resilience by design" challenge participants visit port Costa and BVAC
{this past event occurred on October 4th, 2017}
During the first week of October, a crew of participants Resilience by Design, an international design competition to formulate innovative solutions to combat the effects of climate change, made Port Costa and the Burlington Hotel their home base for several days as they toured the region. On October 4th, after Port Costa’s resident history buff, Suzanne Statler-List, gave them a tour of the town, the crew visited BVAC’s reservoir site where founder, Earl Flewellen, shared its historic role as the fresh water supply for Port Costa’s once-bustling port and rail yards, it’s vital role in the valley's stressed watershed and its hopeful future as an ecological restoration and educational site. A few folks from the design crew even went out for a canoe ride on the reservoir! A big thanks to the Resilience by Design crew and to Karl Nielsen, the team’s project photographer who took the beautiful photos above. See more about RBD here: http://www.resilientbayarea.org and see more of Karl’s photography here: https://www.karlnielsenphotography.com
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GUIDED NATive Plant Tour
{this past event occurred on April 22nd, 2017}
On April 22nd, the inimitable Dr. Dean Kelch, Crockett resident and Primary Botanist for the California Department of Food and Agriculture, led an informative (and very entertaining!) tour of native plants of the Carquinez Strait. Starting with a meandering tour of BVAC’s reservoir site in Port Costa, the group witnessed how the land has been overtaken by many invasive species. We then took a beautiful walk from Eckley Pier to Crockett, stopping all along the way to spot native plants thriving in the hills above the Carquinez Strait.
Dr. Dean Kelch (in foreground with hat) points out featres of a native plant (astragalus asymmetricus) found near East Bay Regional Park District’s Bull Valley Staging Area and Eckley Pier.
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SPILLWAY GRAFFITI REMOVAL PARTY (AND LUNCH!)
{this past event occurred on JULY 28, 2016}
On July 28th, 2016, we held BVAC’s first volunteer cleanup effort! Our first improvement project on the land involved helping paint over graffiti that has increased significantly over the last couple of years. Contra Costa County provided the paint and volunteers took to the walls of the spillway like a canvas, using tree leaves
as stencils to create a natural texture obscuring the graffiti and mimicking trees and leaves in dappled
shade. On your next walk around the reservoir, be sure to look down as you pass the spillway
to see how beautiful anti-graffiti painting can be!
Special thanks to Suzanne Statler List, Anne Scheer, Jeff Wilson, Paolo Gomez,
Yaeir Heber, Ashleigh Lobalbo, Chris Shima, and Lucy Shima.
Lucy Shima taking things into her own hands painting over graffiti on the walls of BVAC's reservoir spillway.
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Solstice BON fire
{This past event occurred ON DEcember 21, 2016}
Friends of BVAC along with Port Costa townsfolk gathered for a warm night of cheer during the winter solstice. Even though it was a Spare-the-air day, we were prepared with propane fireplaces! Despite the faux fire, we all managed to have a jolly time, sipping hot chocolate, roasting hot dogs & marshmallows and sharing a good time together. A big thanks to all who showed up (especially that person who brought the peppermint liqueur!).
