San Rafael Creek set for full dredging after 20 years

March 23, 2022

For the first time in two decades, San Rafael Creek could be fully dredged this year with the approval of nearly $7 million in federal funding.

The creek channel is seen as a vital artery in San Rafael. Harboring nearly 2,000 boats, the channel acts as a key part of the city’s flood control defense system, provides access for emergency responders and is home to several businesses and about 12,000 residents within a half-mile radius.

The channel has not been fully dredged since 2002, with storms in the following decades carrying in sediment that has shoaled the channel to depths as shallow as 2 feet. Larger vessels have run aground at times.

As a result, what would normally be a hive of activity at the canal’s various marinas and boat slips has been “withering away and almost dying” in recent years, said U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, whose district includes Marin County.

“The channel is rapidly becoming unusable because it is so silted in,” said Huffman, a Democrat who lives in San Rafael.

After years of advocacy and effort by local business owners, residents and elected officials, the project received a $6.75 million allocation this month as part of the $1.5 trillion spending bill passed by Congress and signed by President Biden.

The funding will allow the inner channel from the turning basin by Grand Avenue to Pickleweed Park to be dredged to a depth of 6 feet and the outer channel running out to San Pablo Bay to be dredged to a depth of 8 feet.

San Rafael Public Works Director Bill Guerin said that while an early estimate put the project cost at about $13 million, a recent design study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers showed the $6.75 million grant could cover the entire cost.

However, Guerin said, the caveat is how the agency will dispose of contaminated sediment found in the turning basin of the creek near the Highway 101 overpass.

The study found there were sediments with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and other contaminants found at the site, Guerin said. The Army Corps of Engineers needs to determine whether the sediments are clean enough to dump in the ocean or whether they will have to be transported to a hazardous waste site on land, which will come at a higher cost.

“The corps is going to bid the project in the spring and we should know a lot more in the May or June time frame as far as how this project is going to proceed,” Guerin said. “We’re anticipating it will proceed this summer.”

The canal was last dredged in 2011 but only partially so because of questions of how to dispose of suspected contaminated soil on the channel’s western end. A $1.3 million federal allocation to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last year was used to plan and design the current dredge project, including taking soil samples.

Huffman said while it is possible some surprises could come up, the intention of this latest appropriation is to get the full channel dredged.

“It’s not a question of ‘will they dredge?'” Huffman said. “It’s really a question of ‘will some of the sediment get special handling?'”

Nadine Urciuoli, vice president of Helmut’s Marine Service and president of the San Rafael Channel Association, said she is “absolutely elated” by the funding.

“It will be huge not only for the businesses along the waterway but also the health and safety of the community,” Urciuoli said. “We’re thrilled.”

Seven of the city’s water pump stations flow out into the channel during heavy storms, with the continued siltation limiting the city’s flood control defenses. Other concerns include the hindering of firefighters and police who might not be able to access parts of the channel during emergencies.

In addition to the main channel, property owners along the waterway are also set to pay for the dredging of their private harbors and marinas as part of an umbrella permit secured with the city. The federal funding will not be used for these projects.

Anna Belanger, office manager for Lowrie Yacht Harbor, said the plan is to have both dredging projects start around the same time.

“However much they dredge, we’re just happy with anything,” Belanger said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is supposed to perform routine dredging to maintain proper channel depth every six to eight years under the River and Harbors Act. But Huffman said smaller, shallow-draft harbors such as those along San Rafael Creek have largely been considered “stepchildren” in the huge portfolio of navigable waterways the Army Corps of Engineers has on its to-do list.

Huffman said he is interested in reforming how the Army Corps of Engineers handles these smaller systems and finding ways to get these dredging projects into the hands of local public-private partnerships.

“For now, we celebrate this conventional federal funding and the conventional dredging process,” Huffman said. “I hope the next time we dredge, it will be a private-public partnership that doesn’t take 20 years to happen.”

The federal funding package also included a $700,000 grant to begin designing and studying alternatives for a bicycle path on one of the last unprotected sections of East Sir Francis Drake Boulevard near Larkspur.

Advocates for safer bicycles paths have been eyeing this half-mile segment between Drakes Cove Road and Andersen Drive for over a decade.

“This is an outstanding gap in the San Francisco Bay Trail that the bike coalition has been looking to fill for quite some time,” said Warren Wells of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition. “Especially with the opening of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge path, we believe that this project would really improve connections between Central Marin and that path.”

“We look forward to the study being completed and that segment of road getting a safer bicycle facility,” said Matthew Hartzell of Wilderness Trail Bikes-Transportation Alternatives for Marin.

The county has come up with preliminary designs for various routes the path could take, with construction cost estimates ranging from $4 million to $14 million.

“For example, widening the road to install on-street bike facilities would have a drastically different cost than tunneling under the road to connect to Remillard Park with an undercrossing,” said Eric Miller, a county public works official. “The pros and cons of the different alternatives will be considered during the planning process.”

The unprotected section of road between the Interstate 580 flyover and the Larkspur Ferry Terminal is a high-stress ride along the shoulder where bicyclists must ride next to heavy truck traffic, transit buses and fast-moving cars, Wells said.

The Marin County Bicycle Coalition will be advocating to extend the fully-separated bike path rather than have a painted bike lane.

“We want something that people would feel taking their grandma or kid on and not just making a painted space for more risk-tolerant riders,” Wells said.


By:  Will Houston
Source: Marin IJ