Marin officials laud regional sea-level adaptation plan

With about 40 miles of low-lying bay shoreline near homes and businesses, Marin is among the Bay Area counties most threatened by rising seas, county flood officials say.

“Even relatively small increases in the bay water levels will cause major flooding impacts,” said Roger Leventhal, an engineer with the Marin County Flood Control District.

That’s why Leventhal, Marin planners and environmental groups are applauding the San Francisco Bay Area Conservation and Development Commission for adopting a first-of-its-kind regional shoreline adaptation plan.

The playbook is designed to guide and coordinate how bayside communities, including those in Marin, protect their shores from the perils of the rising sea, which is swelling at an increasing rate.

According the commission, the state regulatory agency that oversees the bay, Marin County is facing about $17 billion in expenses to build adaptation projects, such as living shorelines, marshes and potentially seawalls and levees, to protect itself from inundation.

It will cost Bay Area counties $110 billion to protect themselves from the effects of about a foot of sea-level rise through 2050, the commission said.

The water is also expected to rise more than 6 feet by 2100 — according to the California Ocean Protection Council. Global sea levels have already risen around 8 inches since 1880, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This is caused by global warming.

The regional plan, approved in December, is a first step to meet mandates set by Senate Bill 272, signed in 2023 by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The bill requires local governments in the coastal zone or around San Francisco Bay to develop a sea-level rise plan that includes adaptation strategies and recommended projects by 2034.

The law also prioritizes funding for implementation of sea-level rise adaptation strategies contained in approved plans.

“The costs for adaptation implementation will be enormous and beyond current funding availability, options,” Leventhal said. “Therefore, these shoreline adaptation plans are also a critical effort to develop funding strategies to prepare Marin for the future.”

Leventhal said the commission is encouraging a collaborative approach, where the county and its cities work together to address the issue. Priority areas include the Canal neighborhood of San Rafael, Highway 37, Highway 101, Marin City, Sausalito and Mill Valley.

San Rafael’s shoreline has more than 400 private property owners. About 16,000 people live in the Canal area, which is built on low-lying former marshland and is prone to flooding.

“Also the ground is sinking gradually,” said Kate Hagemann, climate adaptation planner for San Rafael. “So we have less time here to prepare because we already have an existing flood risk here on top of the fact that the bay is rising.”

Hagemann said the city is working on several projects to help the flood risk. For example, the San Quentin pump station, which helps keep Interstate 580 from being inundated on a regular basis, is being replaced.

The Tiscornia marsh near Pickleweed Park is also being rehabilitated to improve habitat and protect against sea-level rise.

Hagemann served on the staff advisory group that helped develop the regional adaptation plan. She said the city is already in the process of writing its own plan.

“As we go down the road of working in adaptation, we need to bring the community along with us,” Hagemann said, adding that planners need to be mindful of the cost of living and quality of life impacts that these changes could have on the residents.

San Rafael officials and nonprofits serving the Canal area said residents fear displacement.

A recent study recommended that renter protections should be in place in the Canal neighborhood before improvements are made to shore up the vulnerable community.

Carly Finkle, a policy manager with the San Rafael nonprofit Canal Alliance, said more than 90% of the neighborhood’s residents are renters. Finkle said that reality needs to be “front and center” when looking at the strategies.

“Sea-level rise is hitting the Canal neighborhood in San Rafael first, worst and hardest among the Bay Area communities,” Finkle said. “We absolutely must put our equity values into practice by investing in life-saving infrastructure and neighborhood redevelopment that allows the current immigrant residents to safely stay in this community.”

Members of the Marin Conservation League, a nonprofit environmental group, said they were pleased the commission made amendments to prioritize nature-based adaptation and habitat protection in response to community comments.

Kate Powers, a board member of the organization, said the commission plans to launch a metrics platform to help measure regional habitat goals.

“The next step is even more monumental,” Powers said. “We will be watching to see how other state and regional planning requirements like those for housing and hazard mitigation will help counties and cities accomplish and balance competing goals.”

Powers said she is interested in how planning and design efforts like those for Highway 37 will make use of the regional adaptation plan guidelines.

The plan is divided into eight topic areas such as community health; ecosystem health and resilience; development, housing and land-use; and transportation. The document establishes a set of standards and challenges each community to perform assessments of hazards and the best strategies to defend against them.

Rylan Gervase, spokesperson for the commission, said Marin County is in good shape already.

“The county of Marin has been a leader in this space,” Gervase said. He said the county has been organizing through the BayWAVE initiative that is looking at consolidating sea-level rise projects across jurisdictions.

“They have put together a governance model to better collaborate on the RSAP,” he said, referring to the regional shoreline adaptation plan.