Good timing for flood control fix

The last piece of a decades-long flood control project along the Petaluma River should be completed this winter - and not a moment too soon.|

Sure it’s dry across California this summer, but a recent warming trend in the Pacific Ocean has scientists predicting that an El Nino weather pattern will hit the drought-parched western U.S. this winter with an increased likelihood of an abnormally wet winter.

While heavy rainfall would be welcome relief after four years of drought, such weather could easily bring flooding, especially to low-lying areas like Petaluma where many residents well remember the historic floods of years past.

Fortunately, a flood control project decades in the making should be completed just in time to provide Petaluma residents with the last bit of needed fortification from flood waters.

Petaluma has historically flooded because it lies at the bottom of a vast watershed where dozens of streams flow in from the hills, through town and into the Petaluma River. After two destructive floods in central Petaluma in the 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers launched a $43 million flood control project, erecting flood walls and pumping systems primarily to protect the oft-flooded Payran neighborhood.

Follow up projects credited with preventing flooding in the north end of town include river terracing between Industrial Drive and the Petaluma River, which has increased the carrying capacity of the river during major storms.

But after most of the work was completed a decade ago, there remained a chink in the armor - a final 100-foot stretch of flood wall that was slated for construction but first required replacement of the rail bridge at Lakeville Street. By the time the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit authority replaced the bridge in 2012, the Corps of Engineers funding had been diverted to more pressing flood projects on the Mississippi River.

The $2 million in necessary federal funding and $3 million from the City of Petaluma was finally budgeted this year, and work is now underway to complete the project. We applaud the city for its dogged pursuit of these funds and for seeing this project through to completion.

When work wraps up later this year, one of the benefits for residents in the Payran neighborhood, among the hardest hit during the historic floods of the 1980s and 1990s, is that their homes will finally be removed from federal flood plain maps. The new designation means those homeowners will no longer have to purchase costly flood insurance.

More significantly, though, they can rest easier when the rain starts to fall knowing that rising flood waters won’t be able to seep through a gap in the flood wall.

To help bolster flood protection, the city and the Sonoma County Water Agency also have launched an extensive stream maintenance program to clear numerous stream beds of silt, invasive plants and debris like old mattresses, which can act like mini dams when they get snagged on branches during a storm. Their efforts allowed flood waters to flow south unobstructed during the most recent storms last year, instead of overflowing riverbanks into homes, businesses and roadways.

The final piece of the greater flood control strategy - regular dredging of the Petaluma River - still faces a $6 million funding gap. This project, which will eventually remove years of accumulated silt and debris from the river, will also benefit commerce and tourism on the river. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) should continue to pursue federal funding to get our river back on the dredging schedule.

But even without river dredging, Petaluma is a much safer place during a major storm thanks to the extensive engineering feat that is nearly complete. When the flood waters rise, as they most likely will this winter, residents here will stay dry.

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