Innovative East Bay Stormwater Project Breaks Ground

BY BILL PICTURE

The San Francisco Estuary Partnership has broken ground on a green street project that will help improve water quality in the Bay by cleaning the stormwater that travels along paved city surfaces.

The “Green Stormwater Spine” will eventually replace a cumulative total of six acres of concrete and other impervious surfaces along the East Bay’s San Pablo Avenue corridor with landscaped areas that collect runoff and filter out surface contaminants using simple natural processes.

“We’re essentially putting it back the way it was, which is kind of funny,” said project manager Josh Bradt. “It’s full circle.”

Polluted stormwater wasn’t a concern back when cities were taking shape along the shores of the San Francisco Bay. Concrete became the material most favored by city planners, and soon anything that didn’t move was covered in the stuff.

“That’s because concrete doesn’t really require care or tending to,” Bradt said. “Once you lay it, you don’t have to touch it or even think about it again really for 25 years.”

But a few decades later, the negative impacts of cities’ “modern equals paved” approach to urban design became evident. Without some naked soil here and there for stormwater to soak into, the Bay became an unwitting receptacle for all sorts of toxic stuff. And eventually, residents of these concrete jungles realized all that gray wasn’t so good for the soul. Now cities are trying to undo the damage and bring back some green.

And then there were four

Seven cities were originally tapped to participate in the $4 million project, which is paid for with funding from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Caltrans and a California Natural Resources Agency Strategic Growth Council grant.

“It was going to be seven cities, seven projects and seven acres,” Bradt said. “Each city was going to select a site based on their own criteria and needs, they would participate in the design process, and they would waive the permit fees. Then we would build it, manage the whole thing from soup to nuts, and hand it back over to them after two years.”

But identifying spots that could be taken offline for a construction project proved a challenge for some cities. “Some couldn’t afford to lose revenue from parking meters if the area they had in mind had meters,” Bradt said. “For others, losing on-street parking wasn’t an option at all, even if there were no meters there.”

So in the end, four cities are participating, and the size of the projects varies from one city to the next. The Emeryville project will treat four acres when it’s completed; the Berkeley project that just broke ground will cover only a half-acre. “But the Berkeley project is a really important one because it’s located on an inlet that discharges directly into Cordonices Creek, which has salmon in it,” Bradt said.

For its project, Oakland picked a location downtown which allows for its upkeep to be covered by the Oakland Business Improvement District’s maintenance budget. “It’ll get the love it needs, which it probably wouldn’t if it were a part of the public works inventory,” Bradt said.

And make it pretty

It’s no coincidence that aesthetic considerations figure as largely into the design of each project as does function, according to Bradt. “Water quality isn’t a very sexy calling card,” he said. “An improved walking experience is much easier to sell.”

But breaking ground at these sites also presents to city agencies and utility companies some opportunities for infrastructure upgrades that their tight budgets wouldn’t have otherwise allowed. For instance, 110-year-old water lines sit below the Oakland site. Once San Francisco Estuary Partnership’s contractor takes up the concrete, replacing those water lines becomes significantly easier and less expensive.

Bradt said it would be nice if the opportunity to rethink stormwater management was similarly considered as cities across the country work to make streets and sidewalks more pedestrian-, bike- and transit-friendly. Ironically, this effort is referred to as “complete streets.”

“It’s a huge missed opportunity,” he said.

But Bradt stresses he’s just happy to see this project, which was first hatched in 2012, finally get off the ground because it almost didn’t. When an original source of funding disappeared, it seemed the Green Stormwater Spine was sunk.

“It took too long to select the sites and get started, and the funding expired,” he said. “There were a few times that I thought we were dead in the water, so there’s been a lot of tooth-grinding on my end as the project manager. But getting some dirt moved last month has really changed my outlook.”

“This is the wave of the future in terms of street engineering and design,” Bradt said. “And the proof of concept is in.” Bradt’s team conducted water quality testing at a site in El Cerrito that preceded the Green Stormwater Spine. Samples of gutter flow water were taken before the site was redesigned and then compared to subsequent samples collected after the project’s completion. The simple methods employed proved excellent at reducing heavy metals, oil and other pollutants associated with cars, pesticides and PCBs (industrial chemicals widely used until they were banned in the late 1970s).

“They say ‘the proof is in the pudding,’” he jokes. “There’s the pudding. This really works.”