We have rangers, natural resource specialists and maintenance staff who take care of the watershed. Their responsibilities include protecting resources, assisting visitors, monitoring plants and animal populations, maintaining natural habitats and maintaining access roads and trails. A few years ago MMWD developed a 10-year plan for managing the vegetation on the watershed. This plan represents MMWD's most comprehensive natural resources management effort ever. The plan also calls for the restoration of meadow and oak woodlands and the protection of rare plant species.
French broom is the worst offender among the invasive non-native plants on the watershed.
It takes hard, sustained physical effort to battle this persistent menace, pulling out the shrub by its roots and using prescribed fire. We're committed to keeping French broom from spreading further, and over time, permanently reducing its extent. Fire Prevention on Mt. Tam One of the primary goals of our vegetation management plan for Mt. Tam is to reduce fire hazard. Since the beginning of record-keeping in 1859, major fires have raged through Marin County periodically. An 1882 fire burned an estimated 65,000 acres, and a 1923 fire swept south over 40,000 acres from Novato to Alpine Lake.