FILE: Vineyards in Napa on Oct. 14, 2017. Napa County supervisors have voted to reduce the fees landowners will be required to pay for pumping water in the Napa Valley Subbasin. (Lance Cheung/USDA via Bay City News)

In the rugged hills to the east of the Napa Valley, chainsaws and bulldozers converted a steep hillside of scrubby oak woodland and rockpiles into another vineyard.

“That was an incredible rock-hopping wonderland, with frothing, amazing, waterfalling cascades every time it rained — I mean, it should have been a park,” said nearby resident Kellie Anderson of what is now a plot of grapevines at Bremer Family Winery, in the small community of Deer Park.

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