Creeks Committees, Barron Park (Neighborhood) Association

Government Agencies and Regulations

Environmental regulations apply not just to the creeks and their banks but to land within 50 feet of the center of the creek. See a partial collection of links.

Resources

• Debris in creek (Santa Clara Valley Water District):
  • Creek Maintenance Hotline: (408) 265-2600, extension 2568 (during business hours)
  • Online: Service Request Form
  • Additional contact info for Lower Peninsula Watershed
• Blocked storm drains (City of Palo Alto)
  • During working hours: 496-6974
  • After hours and holidays: 329-2413
• Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program
• Information on creek flows
  • Creek Levels (selected spots) from City of Palo Alto
    Alternate path
  • Daily flows from Santa Clara Valley Water District
    This web site tends to be painfully slow, and is being reorganized, so some of the may become dead at any time.
    Note: if using search engine, the SCVWD uses a mix of "gage" and "gauge" (the former is an acceptable, but less common, spelling of the word that is used in various engineering speciality).
    Warning: this data is automatically collected from untended gauges. Failures and bad reading are not unexpected.
    • Index for various gauges
    • ALERT Stream Gauge Information
    • "Matadero Creek at Palo Alto" (gauge #1458) (at El Camino)
    • Barron Creek at Sediment Basin (Diversion Channel) (gauge #2054)
      Note: the gauge is at the diversion entrance and 10.4 feet is the bottom of that gauge (the bottom of diversion channel is 10.4 feet above the bottom of the sediment basin).
    • Barron Creek at Middlefield Road (gauge #1462)
  • Daily rainfall from Santa Clara Valley Water District
    Warning: this data is automatically collected from untended gauges. Failures and bad reading are not unexpected.
    • Dahl Ranch near Foothill Park: near Page Mill Road and start of Adobe Creek
    • Palo Alto (in Baylands)
  • 3-day plots from Ken Poulton (resident)
• California Flood Information: Flood Status Overview from CERES: California Environmental Resources Evaluation System, a program of the California Resources Agency
• Tips to Prevent or Reduce Lot Flooding by Gene Simpson, from the Fall 1996 issue of the BPA Newsletter
• Stormwater Basics | RAN

Issues: Current and Ongoing

• Matadero/Barron Remediation Project: Final considerations (2002): Flood wall heights in Midtown (esp Ross, Louis and Greer):
  SCVWD Evaluation of Alternatives: PDF and MS Word
• Flooding risk: in upcoming rainy seasons due to undersizing of the lower Matadero channel
  • Summary:
    • Discovered in summer 1997
    • Initial problem discovered at Louis Road bridge, but the scope of the problem grew during several rounds of exploring the problem.
    • Interim measure: The bypass channel from Barron Creek to Matadero Creek has had a gate installed and it will be shut if Matadero is in danger of overflowing.
      • In the big storm of February 1998, the gate was closed and the Barron Creek sediment basin overflowed briefly. However, because there was a gate rather than a static barrier, enough water was moved from Barron to Matadero early in the storm to avoid flooding (from the creek: there was some flooding from runoff from yards and streets).
    • Remedy: being delayed by engineering studies and funding decisions.
  • Archive of interactions with Water District (predominantly meetings in Fall 1997 through Summer 1998).

History

• Water levels in Barron Creek Sediment/Settlement Basin Wednesday 2009-01-20 at 10am, during a break in the third storm in four days. Photos by Christian Kalar: Diversion entrance and apron, close-up showing height markers, and water level relative to the top of the banks.
• Benefit Assessment (a tax) for the Northwest Flood Control Zone is expiring soon.
  Article: Flood control tax may come to vote from the 1998 April 17 issue of the Palo Alto Weekly.
  Tax assessment passed.
• Barron/Matadero Bypass Project:
  From the Palo Alto Weekly:
  • Flood project sparks protest from the 1994 February 02 issue
  • Flood-control project wins approval from the 1994 February 25 issue
  • Flood-control project causes customer trickle from the 1994 May 25 issue
  • Flood of noise, dirt and disturbance from the 1996 March 06
  • Flood control part II worries businesses from the 1996 December 18 issue
• Flooding:
  From the BPA Newsletter:
  • Storms of the week of 1998 February 02: article from the Spring 1998 issue.
    More Pictures from Storm of 1998 February 02-03 by Christian Kalar
  • Creeks: Channels and Flooding - a History article from the Spring 1998 issue.
  
  From the Palo Alto Weekly:
  • Another flood averted from the 1995 March 15 issue
  • Flood zones from the 1995 November 08 issue
  • Much ado about El Nino from the 1997 October 15 issue
  • Flooding problems in October from the 1997 October 15 issue
  • Flood project goof leaves some residents in harm's way from the 1997 October 15 issue
  • Creek design error angers residents from the 1997 October 17 issue
  • Flood decision angers Barron Park from the 1997 November 14 issue
  • Storm of 1998 February 02-07: multiple articles in 1998 February 06 issue and 1998 February 11 issue.

  From the The San Francisco Chronicle:

  • How Peninsula Creeks Fared in Storm / Luck, geography and engineering helped avert flooding (10 January 1997)
• Palo Alto Flood '98 "Official web site of the Duveneck/St. Francis Neighborhood Association (a.k.a. North of Oregon Association of Homeowners) and the DNA Creek Action Committee"