Blog note: this article references a recent grand
jury report.
MENLO PARK -- One thing seems certain: The
seas are rising.
Yet the approach to dealing with sea level
rise in San Francisco Bay is as fluid as the Bay itself.
For one thing, the science keeps evolving,
leading to conflicting reports of the likely impacts of climate change.
And in San Mateo County, at least, there is no
overarching body in charge of dealing with the phenomenon, as noted by a civil
grand jury report released in the summer.
But the county is trying to fill that void by
forming a sea level task force made up of community members to help raise
public awareness about the problem and what the county is doing about it. The
task force, however, won't have the authority to make any decisions.
With sea level projected to rise anywhere from
2.9 to 5.4 feet by 2100, as much as 15 percent of the county's population --
roughly 110,000 people -- will reside in high flood risk areas this century. A
2012 study by the National Academy of Sciences found that the Bay and the
Pacific Ocean off California will rise by a foot in the next 20 years and 2
feet by 2050.
The grand jury report not only dinged the county
for doing nothing but also criticized individual communities for their
piecemeal approaches to sea level rise. For instance, although cities are
responsible for building and financing their own levees, a levee built by one
city could adversely affect a neighboring city that might not even be aware it
was being built.
"Currently, no countywide agency exists to
provide planning, facilitate coordination among jurisdictions, or to assist
with securing funding for existing flood control projects" or future
projects, the report states.
The San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers
Authority, which is leading an effort to deal with flooding issues along the
creek in Menlo Park, East Palo Alto and Palo Alto, echoed those concerns. It
stated that the county's Flood Control District could fill the role but is only
working in "a few specific zones within the county."
A recent report by the San Francisco Public
Press found that, of 13 Bay Area cities and counties it surveyed, none had
adopted a sea level rise action plan.
Menlo Park's efforts
The city of Menlo Park added its voice to the
din when Mayor Catherine Carlton sent a letter in late August supporting most
of the grand jury's findings, including the need for a countywide oversight
agency.
"The City agrees that (sea level rise) is
a threat countywide and that if nothing is done, major infrastructure will be
affected," Carlton wrote.
The city is working on its own plan to deal
with sea level rise, according to Assistant Community Development Director
Justin Murphy.
In May, the City Council adopted a resolution
nominating the Menlo Park and East Palo Alto baylands as a priority
conservation area, which could potentially allow the city to pursue outside
funding to protect aquatic ecosystems threatened by rising seas.
Menlo Park is incorporating sea level elements
into various aspects of its General Plan, but that has been criticized by some
environmentalists such as the Citizens Committee to Complete the Refuge. The
group emerged from a citizen-led campaign in 1972 to create the 30,000-acre Don
Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge that rings the South Bay.
"I felt they ought to call out (sea level
rise) specifically as a separate item," said committee board member Eileen
McLaughlin. "I am just concerned about adding more and more
infrastructure, more development in areas we already know are probably going to
be affected by sea level rise.
"There are so many things we don't know,
but we need to be forward-looking," said McLaughlin, adding that it will
cost less to prepare for the inevitable than to react to it later. "Menlo
Park is not alone in not having gotten to that point."
According to the Strategy to Advance Flood
protection, Ecosystems and Recreation along the Bay, also known as the SAFER
Bay project, if a 100-year flood happened along San Francisquito Creek this
winter it would cause an estimated $225 million in damage. By 2066, that figure
could jump to $767 million.
Project underway
One agency that hasn't been playing the
waiting game is the California State Coastal Conservancy, which along with the
state Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
Santa Clara Valley Water District and others is helming a project to convert
15,100 acres of commercial salt ponds in the South Bay into a mix of tidal
marshes, mudflats and other wetland habitats.
The South Bay Salt Marsh Restoration Project
has targeted sea level issues since 2003, when Cargill Salt sold the site to
state and federal agencies for $100 million. Its goals are to restore
marshlands to a pre-Cargill Salt habitat, provide recreational opportunities
and maintain and possibly improve flood protection. The plan is to restore 50
to 90 percent of the former commercial ponds to tidal marshes, while maintaining
the rest as foraging and roosting areas for migratory birds.
"There's been several models looking at
how tidal marshes will respond to sea level rise," said Laura Valoppi,
lead scientist for the restoration project. "They're all pointing to the
South Bay as being very sediment-rich and having the best chance (to stave off
rising seas). ... If you have a marsh in front of a levee, you don't need to
build as high of a levee (and) that saves money."
The first phase of the project began in 2009
and was completed earlier this year. It included creation of 3,040 acres of
tidal wetlands, 710 acres of monitored ponds, improved levees and seven miles
of new recreation trails. The second phase has been in the planning stage since
2010, and a draft of its environmental impact report was issued at the end of
October. Work is on pace to begin this spring.
Executive project manager John Bourgeois said
the agencies in the project area have been generally supportive, and he
considers Menlo Park a model partner. He said the biggest obstacle right now is
funding, which is the reason Phase 2 will likely begin in Menlo Park.
"Quite frankly, it's one of the easier
projects," Bourgeois said, adding that work to improve the Ravenswood pond
cluster is 75 percent funded. "We just found out last week we received a
(Department of Water Resources) grant for roughly $10 million for the South Bay
project."
The Ravenswood project consists of four ponds,
the levees surrounding each pond, some of the surrounding marsh lands and a
canal. The pond cluster is bordered by Bedwell Bayfront Park to the west,
Bayfront Expressway to the south, Ravenswood Slough to the east and Greco
Island and the open Bay to the north.
Actual work isn't expected to begin until 2017
at the earliest, but one of four possible options is expected to be chosen by
spring and "we could start seeing dirt moving next summer ... to start
building up some of the internal levees," Bourgeois said.
When that happens, it could cause temporary
public access restrictions at Bedwell Bayfront, as the park will double as a
staging area. Depending on the option chosen, when work is fully underway the
park could see up to 150 two-way truck trips per day for more than a month and
traffic delays could average 1.4 seconds at the intersection of Marsh Road and
Highway 101 during the evening rush hour.
"We're going to try to stay off public
trails as much as possible," he said, adding that some sections could be
closed off for brief periods to foot traffic.
November 6, 2015
San
Jose Mercury-News
By Kevin Kelly
No comments:
Post a Comment