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San Mateo and Santa Clara counties will receive millions of dollars in grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of a nearly $52 million funding allocation to protect San Francisco Bay, including to restore 8 acres of transitional habitat at the Regional Water Quality Control Plant in Palo Alto and to construct the first shoreline horizontal levee on the bay using nature-based solutions.
The announcement came during a June 28 event in Oakland that included the U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee and project grantees. The 24 selected projects will help protect and restore wetlands and water quality, build climate change resilience, and increase environmental benefits with a focus on underserved communities in the nine Bay Area counties.
San Francisco Bay is a designated “estuary of national significance” under the federal Clean Water Act. The bay and its tributary streams, situated in an urban area with more than 7 million people, provide crucial fish and wildlife habitat as part of the larger Bay-Delta Estuary, the EPA said in a statement.
The project for Palo Alto’s baylands will be funded through a $4.3 million grant to the San Francisco Estuary Partnership. The grant will be used to promote planning and design, implementation and monitoring of nature-based solutions as opposed to hard construction in communities across the San Francisco Bay area.
“Approximately $2.1 million will be used for construction of the Palo Alto horizontal levee project. The city of Palo Alto is providing $3.2 million in matching funds. Some of the remaining EPA grant funds will go to a local community-based organization, Nuestra Casa, for associated community stewardship and monitoring activities,” the Estuary Partnership stated in an email.
Another nonprofit, the San Francisco Estuary Institute, received $7.6 million in grants. One grant will address high-priority pollution data gaps through information collection and modeling to improve PCB and nutrient management for San Francisco Bay. A second grant will fund pilot sediment reuse projects to help restore several acres of tidal marsh, transition zones and riparian habitat in the watersheds of the Petaluma River, Rheem Creek and Lower Adobe Creek, and Stevens Creek; the latter two are in Santa Clara County.
A horizontal levee planned at the Palo Alto Baylands would be the first of its kind to treated wastewater for irrigation before it is discharged. Map by Jamey Padojino.
Palo Alto-based Acterra: Action for a Healthy Planet received $358,708 to create climate change resilience in two underserved communities of San Mateo County. The Belle Haven and North Fair Oaks neighborhoods will receive training, community-led vulnerability assessments, and a feasibility analysis for nature-based solutions that enhance water quality and climate justice.
Other projects throughout both counties received sizable grants. Santa Clara Valley Water District received a $3.8 million grant to support the design and permitting to reconnect San Tomas Aquino and Calabazas creeks to the former salt ponds. The effort will restore approximately 1,800 acres of tidal marsh and enhance 50 acres of fresh/brackish marsh.
The district will also receive $3 million to support cleanups of trash in encampments, debris and hazardous pollutants in nine Santa Clara County creeks, with the expected result of
2,000 tons of trash removed and 4,000 square feet of creekbank rehabilitated.
In a statement, Valley Water said the Calabazas San Tomas Aquino Creek Marsh Connection project is expected to be the first creek-marsh connection project in the south San Francisco Bay.
“The establishment of this new tidal marsh could have a positive impact upon water quality in the future by creating a natural filtration system. The results of this project should have positive impacts on all the communities in Santa Clara County,” Valley Water stated.
The nine creeks that will be cleaned up include Berryessa Creek, Coyote Creek, Guadalupe Creek, Guadalupe River, Los Gatos Creek, Lower Silver Creek, Saratoga Creek, Thompson Creek and West Branch Llagas Creek.
“Although these creeks may not be in Palo Alto, Valley Water believes both of these projects could provide benefits to all communities that share the bay, as pollutants are prevented from entering the bay and causing negative impacts to water quality,” the district stated.
City-County Association of Governments San Mateo is receiving $3.4 million to support continued efforts to reduce trash entering San Francisco Bay. It will fund a regional workgroup to develop standard methods to evaluate the effectiveness of trash reduction measures in waters connecting the bay.
San Mateo County will also receive $404,400 to support purchasing, installing and maintaining a large trash-capture device capable of removing about 3,500 gallons of trash per year from the North Fair Oaks community. The project will also develop an education-and-outreach program with a local youth-engagement program.
In addition, the Sphere Institute received $3 million to support design, permitting and initial implementation costs for creating new tidal marsh and transition zone habitats to support shoreline resilience at a park along the Burlingame shoreline in San Mateo County.
In Santa Clara County, the city of San Jose received $419,002 to help teach San Jose high schoolers about watershed protection and support preparedness for climate change-related natural disasters, instilling resilience and environmental stewardship in the next generation of young adults.
Funding for these projects comes from EPA’s San Francisco Bay Water Quality Improvement Fund, a competitive-grant program focused on restoring impaired watersheds, reducing polluted runoff, and building climate-change resilience around San Francisco Bay. The federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law expanded the fund’s mandate to increase equity and access to federal funding and climate resilience support for underserved communities. Since its inception, the fund has invested more than $120 million through more than 80 on-the-ground projects in the nine Bay Area counties.
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