The agency charged with improving flood protection around San Francisquito Creek is preparing for its next ambitious project and the public is invited to weigh in.
The San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority, which includes elected officials from Menlo Park, Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and water agencies from San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, is getting ready to kick off an environmental analysis for improvements upstream of the creek (west of U.S. 101).
In the coming weeks, the agency plans to hold three public meetings to ask residents for input about the project's objectives and the alternatives to be analyzed.
The first meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 18, at the Laurel School Upper Campus Atrium Room, 275 Elliott Drive in Menlo Park.
Meetings also will be held on Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. in the East Palo Alto City Hall Community Room, 2415 University Ave., East Palo Alto; and on Jan. 31 at 7 p.m. at the Palo Alto Art Center Auditorium, 1313 Newell Road.
The upstream effort is the second major project for the creek authority, which last year began construction downstream of the flood-prone creek. The downstream project includes a reconstruction of levees near the Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course, removal of debris and the widening of a channel to increase the creek's capacity and protect the particularly vulnerable neighborhoods in East Palo Alto, which were flooded in a major storm in February 1998.
The upstream projects will build on these efforts by adding further flood-control measures. According to the creek authority's "notice of preparation," the objectives are to protect property and infrastructure from floodwaters exiting the creek; enhance the habitat within the project area, particularly for endangered species; create new recreational opportunities; minimize operational and maintenance requirements; and identify ways to make improvements that would not preclude further actions that would "bring the cumulative flood protection up to a 100-year flow event."
To do that, the creek authority is considering five alternatives (along with the state-mandated "no action" alternative).
One would be to modify the Pope-Chaucer bridge and to widen creek channel bottlenecks immediately upstream of the West Bayshore Road Bridge and between Newell Road Bridge and Euclid Avenue. Under this alternative, the Pope-Chaucer bridge (which also flooded in 1998) would be replaced to convey the flow at this location.
Two other alternatives would aim to catch the water before it gets to the residential areas, either through upstream detention basins or through an underground bypass culvert. Another option is constructing flood walls along the channel between U.S. 101 and the Pope-Chaucer bridge.
Comments
The creek authority and partners are soliciting public comment on the project's objectives, environmental issues and the alternatives to be analyzed.
Comments may be made at the public meetings or sent to: SFCJPA, 615-B Menlo Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025; or by email to: comments@sfcjpa.org.
Deadline to submit comments is Feb. 21.
Go to sfcjpa.org for more information.
Comments
Menlo Park: The Willows
on Jan 15, 2017 at 1:05 pm
on Jan 15, 2017 at 1:05 pm
How about the counties and state get their crap together and clear out all the debris in the creek bed?? Decades of neglect down there in a creek we used to be able to walk as children. It's too overgrown down there. The water flows fine if unobstructed by the dead trees shrubs and shopping carts.
another community
on Jan 16, 2017 at 12:31 pm
on Jan 16, 2017 at 12:31 pm
Quite confused by all of the San Francisquito Creek studies that are going on. The JPA is studying one set of options, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, USACE, another set of options and Stanford, a third set of options. The JPA staff is implies that they are directing this confusion, but they don't control the Army Corps or Stanford.
On December 23, 2016, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a NOI "Notice of intent" to prepare an integrated Feasibility Study/Environmental Impact Statement (FS/EIS) for the San Francisquito Creek Flood Risk Management Project. Web Link Meanwhile, Stanford will soon decide what to do with Searsville, and it will interact significantly with any downstream plans. It's highly likely that Stanford will move faster that the JPA or the USACE in the next few years. Web Link