Daly City seeks fix for flooding
Daly City, Calif. - City officials are working with San Francisco on a plan to stem flooding in the Westpark neighborhood, but some of the residents most affected by the problem say they have not been told of a meeting scheduled for this week.The public workshop on Thursday will look at potential solutions to flooding in the area just south and east of the San Francisco Olympic Club golf course. The $500,000 Vista Grande Watershed Plan includes a proposal to drill a tunnel for a 15-foot-diameter storm drainpipe to the coast with an underground boring machine.
The pipe would more than double the current
stormwater carrying capacity in the area and be large enough to handle
rains so severe they're only predicted to occur every 25 years,
officials said.
"No one is going to show up at the meeting because
no one knows anything about it," Demetri Papakonstantino said when
reached at home for comment. Papakonstantino said he suffered around
$150,000 damage when his home was inundated in late February 2004, he
said.
Richard Swan, who said he suffered about $200,000 in damage during the same flood, said he did not know about the meeting either, but supports expanding the storm drain capacity to the coast. Both Papakonstantino and Swan, along with about 75 other residents, are part of a lawsuit seeking $45 million in damages against Daly City, San Mateo County, the Olympic Club Golf Course and San Francisco for the 2004 flood.
While notification of the meeting was posted on the city's Web site, residents said they have received no notification in the mail or by telephone.
Daly City officials did not return calls for comment.
The $118 million to $165 million pipeline construction project could take one of three routes, either cutting under the golf course and emptying south of Fort Funston or following John Daly Boulevard and emptying at Thornton State Beach. It would be completed sometime in 2011, officials said.
With the pipeline constructed, the Vista Grande canal, running parallel to John Muir Drive, would be turned into 5.5 acres of storm water wetlands. Water collected from the wetlands, which is expected to attract migrating birds and other wildlife, could be used to recharge Lake Merced, which remains below historic levels, said Greg Bartow, integrated water resources manager for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
Stormwater runoff could also be diverted to an underground aquifer in northern San Mateo County, Bartow said. Usable storage of the aquifer is estimated at about 75,000 acre-feet, roughly the same size as the Crystal Spring Reservoir, which could be tapped during a drought or in the event of an earthquake, officials said.
The San Francisco-based group Friends of Merced Lake is critical of the plan, saying that among other things it is an expensive way to pour fresh water into the ocean, according to member John Plummer.
