Barron Park Residents: This is an important message for those at risk of flooding from Barron Creek (map of 1983 flooding at http://www.bpaonline.org/flood-map.html). The Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD or "Water District") is holding a Community Meeting on Wednesday June 24 at 7pm in Cubberley Community Center (Theater Building) to discuss the status of the undercapacity problem in Matadero Creek that result in our portion of Barron Creek having only 20+ year flood protection, rather than the 100-year protection promised. This is a problem of both potential flooding and the cost of flood insurance. The Water District *staff* report has redefined the flood control project priorities and they have dropped the Barron-Matadero fix from top priority to the bottom priority for projects in our zone (each zone has its own budget). They are using essentially the same faulty rationale that they used last Fall when they decided that our neighborhood would bear the full brunt of flood risk from their mistake on lower Matadero. We objected and they promised and promised that it would only be for one winter. Now the problem is in jeopardy of NEVER getting fixed. It is important to show community concern, and the best way to do that is to have a good turnout at this meeting, to ask pointed questions, and to object to the assumptions behind the staff's calculation of relative benefit and hence priorities. ATTEND THE MEETING and make sure your neighbors know they should also ATTEND. If the Water District sees only the same small group of people, they will likely assume that that we are unrepresentative and that the community-at-large does not care about this issue. Important distinctions: 1. The report is from the Water District's professional staff. It has been approved by the elected Board, but there is some question about what they approved/committed to: were the priorities for just this year (no big deal) or for the longer term (big problem for us). Our representative on the board, Greg Zlotnick, will be at this meeting and is likely to be influenced by what he hears and sees (or doesn't see). 2. Different parts of the Water District's staff have different interests and priorities. The Operations staff would very much like the Matadero-Barron project to be completed so that they can get rid of the hassle of monitoring creek levels and operating the gate on the Barron diversion tunnel. But they are only one voice within the overall staff that is recommending priorities on which projects get what priority. *If* the staff's recommendations are adopted by the Water District board, it may well mean that the fix will be greatly delayed, possibly forever. Important: There is confusion/ambiguity on the projected starting dates for the various projects on the priority list. Our Zone has a potential cash flow problem: reserves are roughly $20M, the primary source of revenue is a tax that will be coming up for a vote (probably requiring a two-thirds majority), and the projects that could be started would substantially exceed available funds. *Listen carefully to determine whether a claimed project start date simply means that the planning and permitting is completed, or whether it also includes funding. The goal of Barron Park residents should be to: - change the Water District's staff's definition of what areas are affected by not doing the fix. - get a significant enough change to move the Matadero fix up the priority list, - thereby giving it a reasonable chance of being done while there is still money to do it. If the area affected is redefined back to being the whole of the Matadero-Barron project, the number of homes at-risk goes up substantially (from 1000 to 4000) and although the projected frequency of flooding goes down, the combined result in the calculation of how important our project is relative to others seems to be in our favor (too many of the Water District's numbers are guestimates). There are three other projects competing with the Matadero fix ($11.5M) upper Adobe Creek ($8.1M) Premanente Creek ($23-33M) Bay-front levees ($6-9M) and current reserves are about $20M, meaning at most two of these can be done soon. Be aware that all these projects address serious problems. If Matadero has to wait too long (other projects and the renewal of the tax), the potential San Francisquito project (big, big bucks) could get first call on the available budget. Background below: Sorry that there are lots of details, but this is a battle in which the details are key. Sorry for a bit too much repetition: I would have written a shorter note if I had more time. Using Diversion Structures was Win-Win Solution =============================================== Using the diversion structures - instead of conventional concrete channels - for the Matadero-Barron Creek flood control project was a Win-Win situation Win for the taxpayer -------------------- Cost of the project (1987 dollars): with diversion structures: $20.6 conventional concrete channels: $29.6M $9M more (44% more) Win for the larger community ---------------------------- No changes to Barron Channel between Gunn HS and the bay meant less disruption of city streets - no second crossing under El Camino (remember the mess created by the work on the Matadero tunnel under El Camino) - no construction along Los Robles Avenue - major school corridor - busiest bicycle corridor in Palo Alto - no rebuilding of bridges over lower Barron (below El Camino) Aesthetics: natural creek and mature vegetation instead of barren concrete channel along upper Los Robles and lower Matadero Avenues and in Bol Park. *However*, do not forget the sacrifice made by people along the course of the diversion channel who were never in the flood area and thus had to endure construction that would not have been near their homes under the conventional approach. Win for residents living along creeks ------------------------------------- Barron Creek (full length from Gunn HS to bay): no construction in creek, and hence in their backyards no lost of backyard space to a much enlarged channel Matadero Creek: Avoided having to condemn (remove) 7 homes. Avoided taking yards to straighten Matadero Creek in increase channel size. No construction in creek channel close to creekside home. No removal of major vegetation, including heritage oaks and other mature trees. Win for the environment ----------------------- Preserved 3.5 acres of natural riparian corridor along Matadero Creek and the shorter remaining segment along Barron Creek (from Gunn HS to Laguna) The diversion structure roughly followed the path of an abandoned railroad line (now the bicycle path), hence it was disturbing an area that had been previous disturbed (and had still not recovered). Details on why this was so much cheaper than conventional approaches ==================================================================== Matadero Diversion structure: Run-off from a large portion of Stanford Research Park and beyond drains into Matadero Creek at El Camino via the Stanford Channel. This underground channel runs along the boundary between the Varian property and the houses on Chimalus. This channel needed to be enlarged as part of this project because of a combination of undercapacity and increased runoff. The idea behind the Matadero Diversion was to take the excess water out of Matadero Creek at the bike bridge/donkey pasture, run it through an underground tunnel and put it into the Stanford Channel at Laguna, rather than turning Matadero Creek into a concrete channel all the way from the bike bridge to El Camino. This necessitated making the new Stanford Channel larger than it would otherwise would have needed to be, but this increase was more than offset by not having to do construction along the Matadero creekbed. The Barron Diversion Structure Matadero Creek is much larger than Barron. The carrying capacity of Barron Creek needed to be more than trebled (increased 260%), but that additional flow added only 15% to the capacity needed for Matadero. Rather than doing a massive expansion of Barron all the way to the bay, it was substantially cheaper to move the excess to Matadero and make the Matadero project a little larger. **Critical: putting the excess water from Barron into Matadero was part of the original (1988) project choice, design and calculation. The substantial cost savings of the approach using diversion structures was a highlighted advantage in the Water District's presentations of the project. The budget from the very beginning was for a single project handling both Barron and Matadero Creeks. In the documents dated 21 December 1987 provided by the Water District for the 20 January 1998 public meeting, the narrative for the alternative labeled "Proposed Project" begins with the sentence: "Matadero and Barron Creek flood problems solved jointly." The more expensive alternatives using conventional concrete channels have narratives that begin with "Matadero and Barron Creek flood problems solved separately." The Water District's Staff's position ===================================== *Remember: this is the staff, not the elected board (at least not yet and not that we know of) Warning: this is somewhat simplified, and involves some reading between the lines and some working backwards from their conclusions for which they do not state assumptions. The Barron Creek diversion structure was a separate project. Counter: It was the upper part of the last phase of a 5-phase project and all previous Water District documents referred to it as "Phase 5d" (Phase 5 covered both diversion structures). Also see "solved jointly/separately" above. The Barron Creek diversion "project" is not a completed project because the paperwork has not be finalized (whereas the phases for lower Matadero are regarded as a completed project). Counter: The paperwork they are referring to was for the whole project (to remove properties from the 100-year flood plain and hence from having flood insurance required). In redoing the calculations for *lower* Matadero, they discovered an error in the design for *that* part of the project. The problem with the lower Matadero channel is the result of water diverted from Barron. Counter: The water diverted from Barron has been part of the project from the very beginning (pre-1988). The design of the Matadero channel included these flows. This is not some after-the-fact addition. The Consequences ================ The Water District staff report takes what we were promised would be only an emergency/interim one-year solution to the problem on lower Matadero and transforms it into the baseline flood protection for use in comparison to competing projects. The Water District staff has redefined the flooding problem as confined to the Barron Park neighborhood rather than all the neighborhoods that would be flooded by Barron and Matadero Creeks. They thereby lower the number of homes affected from 4000 to 1000 (using numbers from their tables when the problem was first identified). Depending on how they weight the impact of flooding, defining the Matadero Fix to affect a much wider area could move the Matadero fix from fifth (last) priority to at least third priority and potential even first priority.