Stormwater Problems?! – Call Me Crazy…

Do we have a stormwater problem here, or not? I thought so. I expected my presentation on stormwater last night to be controversial, but what I got was not what I expected.

For the past few months, I’ve been engaged with residents complaining that their homes were being crushed by falling trees, that their evacuation route was blocked, and that their homes were flooded.  So I’ve been taking walking tours and reading up on the engineering, the best practices, and talking to agencies potentially involved in stormwater governance.  What surprised me was the following:

1. Residents are willing to pay to fix a problem caused by the County, wherein the cumulative effects of permitting impermeable surfaces without adequate stormwater controls are flooding us.
2. Residents of Seal Cove saying stormwater is not the problem with the earth movement sliding them toward the ocean – yet others telling me it is, BUT who didn’t attend the meeting.  The concept of Hydrostatic Pressure is unclear.
3. Residents seeming resigned to having to live with this; you can’t fight growth and the Real Estate industry, etc.

Now, that wasn’t everyone’s opinion, but there were only a couple of dozen attendees, when we got several times that attendance, in person, for off-leash dog walking and the Pump Track.  So maybe I’m only a crazy curmudgeon.

I made what I thought were some pretty bold statements, including:

1. The County caused this problem, both by its allowing the growth and by not developing stormwater infrastructure.
2. We need to stop all new construction until the stormwater problem is proven solved.
3. The County has to pay for the infrastructure liability they created – and can then charge residents for the ongoing upkeep.

And here are some things that I did NOT say last night, but which I gathered during my research:

1. “San Mateo County is the worst in the Bay Area at stormwater management” – Professional engineering firm
2. “There is no major stormwater problem here, the real problems are on the Bay Side where people are being flooded out of their homes” – SM County official
3. I should go to the regional water quality control board and get the County shut down for new water & sewer connections. – Public official

Thus, I didn’t come to my recommendations lightly, and if you watch the slide show, you’ll understand why.

So let’s leave the issue here: If you haven’t already contacted me, put “Stormwater Problems” in your email subject to [email protected] and voice your concern and back it up with text and pictures I can publish.  What I propose now is to feature a series of articles here in the Buzz, co-authored with affected residents in each neighborhood (even those flooded out and living elsewhere temporarily).  And then we can decide together how much people really care, and are willing to do about this.  Warning: this issue came up before, and it went nowhere.  So there’s that.