The Montezuma Hills comprise a small range of low-elevation hills at the northern banks of the

Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta The Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, or California Delta, is an expansive inland river delta and estuary in Central California and Northern California Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that ...

and southwestern

Sacramento Valley The Sacramento Valley is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies north of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the Sacramento River. It encompasses all or parts of ten Northern California ...

in California in the United States.

Geography

The Montezuma Hills are located in southern

Solano County, California Solano County () is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 453,491. The county seat is Fairfield, California, Fairfield. Solano County comp ...

. They are bounded by the

Sacramento River The Sacramento River () is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento–San Joaquin River D ...

on the south and east, the Montezuma Slough on the west, and roughly by

California State Route 12 State Route 12 (SR 12) is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that travels in an east–west direction from California State Route 116, SR 116 in Sebastopol, California, Sebastopol in Sonoma County, California, Sonoma County ...

on the north. Rio Vista is the nearest city, and

Travis Air Force Base Travis Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base under the operational control of Air Mobility Command (AMC), located three miles (5 Kilometre, km) east of the central business district of the city of Fairfield, California, Fairfield, i ...

is about 10 miles northwest of the Montezuma Hills. They are north across the Sacramento River from

Antioch Antioch on the Orontes (; , ) "Antioch on Daphne"; or "Antioch the Great"; ; ; ; ; ; ; . was a Hellenistic Greek city founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BC. One of the most important Greek cities of the Hellenistic period, it served as ...

and Pittsburg, and 40 miles (64 km) northeast of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. The summits of these rolling hills vary in height from about . The hills are known for their exceptional

wind energy Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ...

resource potential which has made them the site of the rapidly expanding Shiloh Wind Power Plant, a

wind farm A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...

that now comprises hundreds of

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

s, with another 88 pending approval.

Natural features

The

flora Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for f ...

and

fauna Fauna (: faunae or faunas) is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding terms for plants and fungi are ''flora'' and '' funga'', respectively. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively ...

of the Montezuma Hills has been studied extensively beginning in 1988 with the Earth Metrics

Environmental Impact Report An environmental impact statement (EIS), under United States environmental law, is a document required by the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for certain actions "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment". An EIS ...

for proposed wind energy development."Montezuma Hills Avian and Bat Assessment", 2006, Estep and Jones & Stokes
/ref>"Environmental Impact Report for the Montezuma Hills Wind Farm", 1988, Earth Metrics, published by the Solano County Department of Environmental Management, Fairfield, California and continuing with subsequent analyses"Wind Turbine Effects on Avian Activity, Habitat Use, and Mortality in Altamont Pass and Montezuma Hills", 1993, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Prepared for the California Energy Commission"Solano County High Winds Power Project Environmental Impact Report", 2002, Environmental Science Associates"Biological Resources Report and Evaluation for the Proposed Shiloh Wind Plant Project", Solano County, Ca. that collectively have led to a comprehensive characterization of the local biological resources, plant communities and

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introdu ...

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

. In general there is little remaining native

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plants and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular Taxon, taxa, life forms, structure, Spatial ecology, spatial extent, or any other specific Botany, botanic ...

in the Montezuma Hills due to the historic intensive grazing. As of 2010, land uses are primarily

dryland farming Drylands are defined by a scarcity of water. Drylands are zones where precipitation is balanced by evaporation from surfaces and by transpiration by plants (evapotranspiration). The United Nations Environment Program defines drylands as tropical ...

, sheep grazing, and energy, including natural gas production – the Rio Vista Gas Field underlies much of the Montezuma Hills – and wind energy.

Wetlands A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

cover only a small percentage of the Montezuma Hills, and virtually all of the sparse trees are non-native

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

associated with the area's

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

ing homesteads. Compared to the

Suisun Marsh Located in northern California, the Suisun Marsh ( ) has been referred to as the largest brackish water marsh on west coast of the United States of America. The marsh land is part of a tidal estuary, and subject to tidal ebb and flood. The marsh ...

to the south and west, the Montezuma Hills have a relatively unabundant

diversity Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to: Business *Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce *Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers * ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s and other

. Among the Montezuma Hills are a number of intermittent drainage swales that flow during winter months; otherwise the monotypic dryland farms support even less diversity of wildlife than more agriculturally diverse land uses to the north. Exceptions to the dearth of wildlife are the considerable populations of

ground squirrel Ground squirrels are rodents of the squirrel family (Sciuridae) that generally live on the ground or in burrows, rather than in trees like the tree squirrels. The term is most often used for the medium-sized ground squirrels, as the larger ones ar ...

s and other small rodents, which populations in turn support modest numbers of raptors. Birds present in moderate numbers are the

red-winged blackbird The red-winged blackbird (''Agelaius phoeniceus'') is a passerine bird of the family Icteridae found in most of North America and much of Central America. It breeds from Alaska and Newfoundland south to Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, and ...

cliff swallow The cliff swallow or American cliff swallow (''Petrochelidon pyrrhonota'') is a member of the passerine bird family Hirundinidae, the swallows and martins. The generic name ''Petrochelidon'' is derived from the Ancient Greek meaning "stone" and ...

, northern harrier and

barn swallow The barn swallow (''Hirundo rustica'') is the most widespread species of swallow in the world, occurring on all continents, with vagrants reported even in Antarctica. It is a distinctive passerine bird with blue upperparts and a long, deeply f ...

. Moderate numbers of avian nests have been documented in the Montezuma Hills including

red-tailed hawk The red-tailed hawk (''Buteo jamaicensis'') is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It is one of the most common members of ...

American kestrel The American kestrel (''Falco sparverius'') is the smallest and most common falcon in North America. Though it has been called the American sparrowhawk, this common name is a misnomer; the American kestrel is a true falcon, while neither th ...

and historic nests of the

golden eagle The golden eagle (''Aquila chrysaetos'') is a bird of prey living in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the most widely distributed species of eagle. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. They are one of the best-known bird of pr ...

References

{{reflist

External links

Shiloh II Wind Project Environmental Impact Report
Mountain ranges of Solano County, California Hills of California Geography of the Sacramento Valley Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta Mountain ranges of the San Francisco Bay Area