BUILDING INNOVATION

By Michael Riser

If you’ve ever visited Butte County, you’ve undoubtedly enjoyed the work of the Paradise Recreation and Park District (PRPD). Covering 172 square miles, PRPD is a sprawling area that hosts a concentrated wealth of Butte County’s gorgeous tree-lined hill country, and it’s the district’s mission to open as much of it to visitors as possible.

MOTHER (NATURE) OF INVENTION

PRPD has adapted to the last few uncertain years with the help of District Manager Dan Efseaff, who saw his department lose 60% of its staff after 2018’s Camp Fire, and is soon to lose much of the funding that has supported the district since. Yet rather than being slowed down by the long list of challenges, the district has bounced back to face its problems with everincreasing vigor and enthusiasm, an energy typical of

Paradise Lake

Butte County residents who have pulled themselves up and dusted themselves off with cheerful, determined hearts despite recent setbacks.

PRPD is focused on revitalizing resources that have long been underused, and with social considerations becoming ever more important, it believes it can ease the burden on some of Butte County’s more crowded locations. Many area trails and parks are all but hidden to visitors, so making better, more thoughtful use of existing public land is at the top of its priority list, right alongside creating new and better spaces to augment what’s already on offer.

Blazing New Trails

Innovation for PRPD has come to mean thinking outside the box. Any terrain with steep inclines, abundant fuels (such as trees or dry grasses), and high winds is a fire risk, particularly if those factors make it difficult for fire crews to gain access, yet it’s these spaces that PRPD sees as packed with potential. Improvements can reduce the risks they pose, but can further turn them into landscape-scale buffer spaces that offer active protection to local communities. This is vitally important to Butte County, where dry conditions have caused ongoing frustrations but the breathtaking landscapes and outdoor recreation spaces are important to both residents and visitors. PRPD also hopes its work will create new models that can be used in other vulnerable parts of the state, using Oak Creek Park as an example, where a purchase of 3 acres will provide new access and higher visibility for an underused 17acre gem that helps protect its community.

A Coordinated Community

Efseaff and his team aren’t going it alone by any stretch. One of its major upcoming projects is a 15-to-20-mile looped trail system running along the Magalia Reservoir to Paradise Lake. It plans for the majority of the trails to be shaded—a rarity at this elevation—with a variety of difficulty levels for walking and mountain biking, from family-friendly to advanced, yet creating this fantastic new asset has already required extensive planning and negotiation with no fewer than six different landowners. Another consortium for a study on trails included over a dozen partners from varied backgrounds, like the Nature Conservancy, California State University, Chico, the US Forest Service, and Explore Butte County.

PRPD is seeking dynamic partnerships like its recent cooperative effort with the Paradise Irrigation District at Paradise Lake. While lake recreation has been under PRPD’s care for only six months, it’s already gaining steam and has been a boon to the public in the time of COVID. It allowed for the successful Astronomy on the Lake program, where 30 kayakers took a guided tour of the stars with Dr. William Koperwhats, a professor at CSU Chico’s Community Observatory. The program brought in people from as far as Sacramento and Colusa, and was so popular there are already plans for more instances of the event next year.

A Paradise For Everyone

While PRPD always keeps local residents in mind, its improvements are made for everyone with a love of the outdoors that the landscapes of Northern California always inspire. With the eyes of the world on Butte County in the last few years, many have seen how much there is to offer, and PRPD wants to make sure all those who visit have the best, safest spaces to enjoy.