Hoping to scale back flooding danger for 1000’s of individuals residing in low mendacity areas and increase habitat for fish and wildlife, Silicon Valley’s largest water company and the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers on Thursday introduced they’ve accomplished a $197 million mission to construct two miles of latest levees alongside San Francisco Bay’s southern shoreline.
The brand new 15-foot-high clay and dust buildings stretch from Alviso Marina County Park to the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Nationwide Wildlife Refuge Environmental Schooling Middle.
They’re designed to guard houses and companies towards the kind of winter storms which have severely flooded the low-lying neighborhood of Alviso a number of instances with water as much as 6 toes deep and that are posing extra danger as sea stage rises because of local weather change.
“I lived through the floods of the 1950s, 60s 1983 and 1995,” stated Dick Santos, an Alviso native who serves as vice chairman of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. “Not just the water, but the damage, the destruction and fear. That’s why this project means so much to me. I lived it.”
The work, formally referred to as the South Bay Shoreline Challenge, is also the important thing step towards plans for restoring 2,900 acres of former Cargill industrial salt evaporation ponds close to Alviso again to tidal wetlands for fish and wildlife, and to increase waterfront public trails within the South Bay, officers stated.
“In a region of 8 million people, the national wildlife refuge offers something rare: solitude, wonder and connection,” stated Chris Barr, deputy supervisor of the San Francisco Bay Nationwide Wildlife Refuge Complicated, a 55,000-acre assortment of seven wildlife refuges across the Bay Space.
A heron on the Alviso Unit of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Nationwide Wildlife Refuge on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
The brand new levees will substitute previous dust berms which can be 6 to 10 toes excessive. They are going to supply extra safety from flooding for areas in Santa Clara County north of Freeway 237, together with key services such because the area’s wastewater therapy plant, rail traces and the houses of 5,500 folks.
Thursday’s accomplished 2-mile part will probably be expanded eastward to construct one other 2 miles of latest levees from the Don Edwards schooling heart close to Artesian Slough to Coyote Creek. Building is ready to start on that half in 2028, after permits are authorised, and funding and easements are secured, stated Matt Keller, a spokesman for the water district. Complete price for all 4 miles: $545 million.
To this point, the mission has obtained $124 million below a invoice authorised by Congress in 2018. The water district, often known as Valley Water, supplied $15 million from the 2012 Secure, Clear Water Program, a parcel tax authorised by voters in 2012. One other $61 million got here from Measure AA, a $12-per residence tax authorised by voters in 2016 in all 9 Bay Space counties for wetland restoration and flood management. As well as, $15.1 million got here from the state Coastal Conservancy. The water district stated it expects extra funding to come back from state and federal flood packages.
Low-lying areas across the bay have all the time been liable to flooding in massive winter storms. Sea stage rise is rising the menace.
San Francisco Bay has risen by 8 inches previously 100 years, in response to the tidal gauge at Fort Level below the Golden Gate Bridge and different devices. Because the planet continues to heat, melting ice caps and increasing the quantity of sea water, scientists mission bay waters will rise practically one other foot by 2050 and three toes or extra by 2100, relying on how a lot emissions of fossil fuels rise or fall over the subsequent 75 years worldwide.
“We’ve built megacities of the world on coasts,” stated Gary Griggs, a distinguished professor of earth sciences at UC Santa Cruz, in 2022 when the Alviso mission broke floor. “We didn’t think of sea level rise 100 years ago, and now we are having to pay the price. Whether it is Jakarta, or Miami or San Francisco, they all have the same problems.”
The Alviso mission is the newest try by Bay Space planners to take care of rising waters.
Others embrace a $5 billion mission to rebuild the huge seawall alongside San Francisco’s Embarcadero from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Giants ballpark, the place flooding is more and more frequent throughout massive storms; a $587 million mission to construct greater levees round San Francisco Worldwide Airport to maintain the runways from flooding throughout excessive tides and storms; and a proposal to lift Freeway 37 within the North Bay that would price $6 billion or extra.
The Alviso mission has confronted challenges, together with price overruns and delays.
It was first envisioned in 2005 when the Military Corps and the Santa Clara Valley Water District started planning. Former Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who brokered a $100 million deal in 2003 for the federal and state governments to purchase 16,500 acres of former salt ponds from Cargill Salt to revive wetlands throughout the South Bay, championed it.
Thursday’s 2-mile part was purported to be completed by January 2024. However winter storms and different delays set the completion date again, water district officers stated.
The mission is a partnership between the Military Corps, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the state Coastal Conservancy. Planning is underway for Section 2 and Section 3, which ultimately will present comparable flood safety north to Sunnyvale, Mountain View and Palo Alto someday after 2030, seemingly at a value above $1 billion.
“There’s a lot more work to be done,” stated Lt. Col. Virginia Brickner, with the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers.
A pair of chook watchers scan the New Chicago Marsh on the Alviso Unit of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Nationwide Wildlife Refuge on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
