JPA celebrates five years of helping creek JPA celebrates five years of helping creek (November 03, 2004)

In five years, the government agency promoting the health and safety of San Francisquito Creek can point to accomplishments completed and more in the pipeline.

The San Francisquito Creek JPA (Joint Powers Authority) celebrated its fifth anniversary October 28 by planting a bay laurel tree on the bank of the creek at Euclid and Woodland.

The JPA was founded in 1999, a year after the El Nino storms of 1998 flooded 1,700 homes in Palo Alto, and caused more than $30 million in damages.

Since then, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, the San Mateo County Flood Control District, and the Santa Clara Valley Water District have worked through the JPA to try to reduce damage from future floods, and to restore the ecological health of the creek within its 45 square-mile watershed in San Mateo County.

"We have reached the end of the beginning; now we're adolescent," Menlo Park Councilman and JPA representative Chuck Kinney told a couple of dozen creek advocates at the tree planting.

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo was there to announce that Congress has authorized $100,000 for a reconnaissance study of the creek by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The money has not yet been appropriated, Ms. Eshoo warned, and she urged people to write in support of the funding. The reconnaissance study is the first step in devising a program to protect local communities from future flooding.

So far, the JPA has restored levees downstream from U.S. 101 and launched a series of studies that would lead to restoration of the natural ecosystem, better management of vegetation and elimination of non-native species clogging the channel, stabilization of crumbling banks, management of silt, and a decision on the future of Searsville Dam.

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