Sargent Ranch Saved
- Shiloh
- Jan 31
- 2 min read
I’ve had this lawn sign in my yard for years. Now, after a hard won battle, I can finally take it down.
This past Tuesday, January 27th, 2026, the Valley Water Board of Directors voted to give $4 million dollars to the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) to purchase more of Sargent Ranch. While Valley Water’s contribution was a small drop in the bucket, it was pretty cool to cast that vote. For those of you who don’t know about Sargent Ranch and the effort to protect Juristac, there’s a lot of good info at the links provided below. That said, the very quick story is this.
Sargent Ranch is a roughly 6,500 acre area at the very southern border of Santa Clara County where highways 101 and 129 intersect. For years, there has been a proposal to put a quarry on a portion of the land, a project that galvanized environmentalists and the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. This land, called Juristac, is very precious to the Amah Mutsun, a place that Ed Ketchum, their chair describes as "...a place of great power, where our spiritual doctors lived and conducted healings."
Fast forward to today, and the quarry project is now dead. POST is buying the property and it will be preserved in perpetuity. Don’t let that "fast forward" part fool you though as there was nothing fast about it. The preservation of this land was hard fought for years by some of our very awesome and hardworking environmental nonprofits like Committee for Green Foothills, along with the ornery advocates that make good trouble.
The piece I wanted to highlight from the Water District perspective is that the $4 million dollars was a part of a voter approved measure, Measure S. Passed in 2020, the measure included one bucket of funding (Project D7) to be used to acquire habitat. This, in recognition of the important role habitat protection plays in the overall health of our ecosystem and water.
More specifically, this fund is geared towards helping the district fulfill the goals of the County-wide Habitat Conservation Agency (which I’m on the board of.) More on that agency is here.
Sadly, the measure was intended to give only $8 million every 15 years for habitat acquisition. This $4 million brings the total spent to date to $8 million, hence, depleting the fund. (The previous purchase of habitat was for Richmond Ranch.)
Thank you, the voters of Santa Clara County for having the foresight to pass a measure that allowed the District to play a small role in helping to purchase this very valuable piece of property. To learn more about the story of Juristac and Sargent Ranch, click through the links below.
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