Last segment of Petaluma’s floodwall to be built this year

Petaluma’s three-decade, $40 million quest to armor itself against floodwaters that can spill from its central tidal slough, the Petaluma River, during strong winter storms at last appears to be close to completion.

With $3 million in combined federal and local funding, contractors later this year will begin work to finish a relatively small gap in the concrete, steel and earthen floodwall that now lines more than a half-mile of the river south of Payran Street into downtown and helps protect hundreds of homes and businesses.

The finishing touch, on a 100-foot segment just north of the Lakeville Street crossing, will allow 66 residential and commercial properties to be removed from the flood zone, meaning their owners will no longer need costly flood insurance, officials said.Work on the last segment has been stalled for about a decade, after funding once designated for the fix disappeared years ago due to the intertwined nature of complicated public works projects and disasters halfway across the country. But in this year’s federal budget, the Army Corps of Engineers finally received money to complete the unfinished segment.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, on Monday stood on a nearby railroad trestle and looked at the muddy riverbank where the remaining work will be done later this year.

“It’s unbelievable how little there is left,” he said. “It’s exciting that we are really going to move on the project now.”

The uncompleted section of floodwall lingered long after the rest of the larger project was mostly finished in 2005 because it required replacing the old wooden railroad bridge crossing the river just north of Lakeville Street. The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit agency, which owns the bridge, finally built a new concrete span in 2012. By that time, funding to complete the flood control project had been diverted to more urgent Corps of Engineers projects on the swollen Mississippi River.

Touring the site with Huffman on Monday, the head of the Corps of Engineers South Pacific division, Brig. Gen. Mark Toy, said he was pleased to be able to finish the project. He said he did not know when funding would be available for another critical Petaluma River project - the long-delayed dredging of the tidal slough.

That $6 million project remains unfunded, leaving silt to pile up in the river channel, which hasn’t been dredged since 2003. The extra material can limit recreational and commercial traffic on the waterway and also add to the flood hazard.

“Everyone knows that resources are tight,” Toy said. “Sometimes, even making the right case to justify a project is not enough with dwindling resources.”

The 100 feet of remaining floodwall will be covered by $2 million in federal money and $1 million from the city of Petaluma and the Sonoma County Water Agency. The work is set to start in July and is expected to finish in October.

A trail will run along the wall and complete a key gap in the Petaluma River trail system.

The flood control project has been in the works since a massive flood in 1982 inundated homes in the Payran Street neighborhood with up to 6 feet of water and caused millions of dollars in damage.

Another major storm on New Year’s Eve 2005, just after most of the work on the flood control project was complete, flooded parts of the Petaluma River upstream from the protected area but left the Payran neighborhood mostly dry.

“The project more than paid for itself in the first six months,” said Dan St. John, the city’s public works director. “We’re really eager to get that last 100 feet done.”

Property owners in areas designated by the federal government as a “high-hazard zone” must by law buy flood insurance. For some homeowners, that means nearly $2,000 a year.

City Councilman Gabe Kearney said not having to buy flood insurance would be a huge savings to the newly protected residents.

“To be able to finish the project and get off the flood map, it is a really big deal,” he said.