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Jeff Kroot
San Anselmo can Vote to Withdraw from the Flood District for Good Reason
County staff have built almost nothing that will mitigate flooding in the Ross Valley. Just a pump station in Larkspur, a pump station in Kentfield and an ineffective basin in Fairfax. They have spent over $52,000,000 and while we shake our head in dismay, we should also consider what all this waste has done to the atmosphere. Rough calculations tell me the emissions wasted is about 23,000 tons of CO2. That is staggering.
If a school district, or any public agency, had wasted $52,000,000 on the tiniest of results, their Boards would be voted out, Managers would be fired and investigations would be well underway by now. Not so for our Flood District, our Advisory Board, nor our Supervisor.
Let’s talk about the history of flood control in the US in two big steps: 1) In the 1930’s congress protected our pocketbooks by requiring the USACE to perform Financial “Benefit-Cost” studies, they could not ask for funding of projects that did not make sense financially and 2) In 1972 congress passed the Clean Water Act and the USACE was required to perform what they now term, “Environmental Stewardship”. They could not get funding for projects that harmed the environment.
I think public projects of scale should now have a new guideline for accountability: an “Emissions Benefit-Cost Assessment”. We should not fund projects that do not lower future emissions to a greater extent than the emissions released.
There is a project proposed in San Anselmo to tear down Creek Park Plaza for all but no flood mitigation. They’ve changed the way they describe the mitigation. A decade ago they would state that the goal was “mitigation of a 100 year storm event”. The mitigation in San Anselmo is now touted as a number of parcels with just inches of reduction. Why the change?
The EIR documents show water is out of bank in a 10 year event, hence the change is maybe just a 2 or 3 year difference. It would sound completely ridiculous if they honestly stated that they are going to spend upwards of $6,000,000 to increase creek capacity by just 2-3 years.
A recent draft EIR included a question in regard to Greenhouse Gas Emissions:
Would the Project: Generate greenhouse gas emissions, either directly or indirectly, that may have a significant impact on the environment?
My rough calculations for the total direct and indirect CO2 emissions in the scope to tear down Creek Park Plaza is about 3,000 tons all in. The emissions savings are un-estimated and likely negligible. It's crazy.
Some want to demo the plaza and open up the creek in San Anselmo to “benefit nature.” How on earth can opening up 100 feet of creek be worth releasing 3,000 tons of global warming emissions? It’s perverse and our children will rightly tell us so.
We are headed towards a total emissions for this debacle of "flood control" in the equivalent of driving the average car across the US about 17,000 times. The entire effort has been an atmospheric disaster.
We have been led into this mess by minds that see bulldozers as solutions and those plans have been pushed by the bull-headed. Those that speak out: against non-viable projects, the waste of money, the lack of fiscal discipline, and the waste of emissions; we are labeled as “The Opposition”. So be it.
College of Marin students sat down in front of bulldozers in 1969 to save the natural environment of our creek from destruction and replaced with a concrete ditch. People all over the US stopped this destruction of creeks. In 1971, San Anselmo voters stepped up to decide to withdraw from the Flood District.
In 2024 the voters of San Anselmo can once again withdraw from the Flood District. There will still be flood insurance and there will still be flooding as there always will be. What we can do is stop the waste of money as well as the unbelievable waste of emissions. We don’t need to sit in front of bulldozers, but we can stand with the College of Marin students of 1969 that fought for the environment. What we can do is stand with the youth of today that will see this project for what it is: a fiscal and emissions disaster.
Enough is enough! Stop the Waste.
Please join your neighbors in San Anselmo and vote “Yes on Measure F” on the mail-in ballot coming to your mailbox in February.