Putting the project in Cuesta Park Annex was going to be a debacle. Thanks Director Kremen for moving the project to a better location and ending the delays

"The total project budget is $68.7 million"
"The projects are designed to prevent property damage of $48 million"

How about just taking the money and buying flood insurance for everyone?
At least we'll get new ball fields out of it.

Debacle is right.

68 million spent once.
48 million possible damage at today's costs.

What would the costs of home damage be 10 yrs from now?
WWhat would the costs be if it happened today, then again in 10 yrs
then again 10 years later?

Ahh, now you're understanding the idea about investing in infrastructure for the future.

Happy the project is going and in a better location. Cuesta Annex was wrong as they planned to take our dirt and put it in Alviso.

Thanks Trustee Gary Kremen for calling out the bad plan and moving the project

@Genius and @LongTerm - If I read the article correctly, the $48M in property damage was an estimate based on values in 1999, not today. My house is worth a heck of a lot more now than it was in 1999.

Flood damage estimates are not full replacement cost estimates. They don't have much to do with real estate market values as they do with floor board repairs, mold abatement, painting, etc. Those costs have not risen like home prices, but yes, they have gone up since 1999.

This project will also (finally) protect two MVWSD school properties that are immediately adjacent and downstream of the peak storage facilities. Permanent Creek flows under the back part of the Castro site on the Toft Ave side. Even though it has been many many decades since this was built - high water in the tunnel, and spill out before the tunnel, would have damaged both the renovated and the new buildings.

At Crittenden, the creek is open and next to the soon-to-be-started public trail. A few MVWSD building are very close to the creek (which the Voice has also reported on - as the trail building/shared city/schools details were worked out).


thanks for the update Kevin.

What happens to water in the detention basins? Is it retained/processed in a way to be used as "recycled water" or sent to reservoirs as drinking water? Thanks for your work on this.

Kevin @Voice probably knows if this has changed (oh - he wasn't even reporting here when this 'first came up')

When my college senior son was at Graham middle school* - one of his group projects (Lego Robotics) was understanding the environmental reasons for "detention basins" that were proposed for Permenente Creek, They also might be explained as Retention Basins. Keep the water stored (detained) during high floodwaters - and just let it release as the water levels go down. If designed correctly - I think this all just works 'on gravity' and water level flows.
*2008 or so [ Web Link ]

The retention basin is basically a large depression that will give flood water somewhere to flood out to, instead of the neighborhood.
It's not a storage facility, its an area designed to flood so other areas won't. Once the flows decrease, the water recedes like regular flood water, though some will soak down into the ground. While it seems like a lot during a flood instance, the small amount of water that could be stored from a flood would not even be worth trying to re-use.