Atherton Channel converges with the Bayfront Canal near the border between Redwood City and Menlo Park, and empties into San Francisco Bay through a tide control structure not far from Bedwell Bayfront Park. For the past several decades, even minor rainfall events that coincide with a high tide caused water in the Channel and Canal to back up and flood mobile home parks and businesses in the area.
(John Green/Bay Area News Group)
In response to this proven threat, the District is leading a project that partners with Redwood City, Menlo Park, Atherton, and San Mateo County, with over $1.1 million in support from the State, to install an underground culvert to divert stormwater into former salt ponds owned by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. This project’s new outlet for high flows during high tides will reduce the frequency and amount of flooding, thereby reducing costs and improving public health and safety, and its new trash capture device will improve water quality in the Bay. The public agencies partnering on this project intend for it to be the first of several within this 5,500 acre watershed. In a related effort as part of a countywide early warning system, the District is installing a device to monitor streamflow in Atherton Channel at the Caltrain tracks in order to provide advance notification of potential flooding downstream to the public and emergency responders.
Throughout October, the agreement to secure $8.6 million for the project’s construction, operations, maintenance, and mitigation, and agreements for necessary easements, will be discussed at meetings of the governing bodies of the partner agencies, with the goal of beginning construction in early 2021.
Keep up to date on this effort on our project webpage.