After nearly 30 years, Petaluma floodwall project complete

February 29, 2016

It was a familiar exercise when former Petaluma city engineer Tom Hargis was going through security at the Pentagon in 2001, the latest visit between city officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over an extensive, collaborative project to fortify flood protection along the Petaluma River.

Recounting the story at an event celebrating of the now-completed project, Hargis recalled how the effort hit an unexpected speed bump that day.

“That was Sept. 11, when the third plane crashed into the Pentagon,” he said.

Decades after massive floods inundated Petaluma’s Payran neighborhood, a huge swath of current and former city and federal officials gathered this week to celebrate the completion of a $41.5 million project to fortify 3,600 feet of the Petaluma river against rising waters.

The project crossed several hurdles along the way, including delay of a final 100-foot section that sat unfinished for 10 years while awaiting the construction of an adjacent rail bridge. It was there that officials chose to cut the ribbon for the now completed project, unveiling a monument dedicating the floodwall to the residents it now protects.

“This neighborhood was burdened and threatened for too long,” said Petaluma Mayor David Glass. “Today, we are celebrating at least a portion of that burden being lifted.”

Work on the project began in 1988, following an unusually powerful storm in 1982 that caused $28 million in flood-related damage. A smaller storm in 1986 still caused $1 million in damage, prompting the city to seek federal aid to improve its flood control infrastructure in the area.

Spanning north from Lakeville Street, the project included the installation of hundreds of feet of floodwalls, two new emergency pumping stations, replacement of the Payran and Lakeville Street bridges, construction of a new rail bridge and the reshaping of the channel east to Lynch Creek. Costs were shared between federal and local funds.

The project ultimately came to involve generations of local and federal officials, many of whom were on hand to celebrate the unveiling on Tuesday.

“I ran for city council in 1982 and promised I would fix this problem,” said Lynn Woolsey, who represented the area on the U.S. House of Representatives for 10 years after her successful run for the dias in Petaluma. “For someone who thrives on finishes, this was a pain in my behind.”

Jared Huffman, who now represents the area in the House, credited Woolsey for pushing to get regular federal funding appropriated to a project that he was able to move through the home stretch. Federal funding to complete the final section had been diverted elsewhere by the time the nearby rail crossing was completed in 2012, but those funds returned for the Corps’s work plan in 2015.

“There were generations of people who picked up the baton, and I ran with it,” Huffman said. “Even though there was only 100 feet to go, a project that was unfunded like this could have languished for a long time.”

The finishing of the floodwall now allows dozens of homes and businesses in the area to be removed from a high-risk flood designation that previously required them to carry pricey insurance policies. Still, one outspoken neighborhood resident at the event, John Cheney, criticized the project for taking as long as it did.

“This should have been done many years ago,” he said.

Mayor Glass acknowledged that the flood protections took years, but noted that the project was nonetheless sheparded at a time of intensifying political deadlock in Washington.

“Government did work,” he said.

The final 100-foot section also forms a key piece in the Lynch Creek trail, a two-mile, cross-town connector for pedestrians and bicycles forming a nearly car-free route between downtown Petaluma and the city’s east-side neighborhoods.


Source: by Argus-Courier Staff