Private Funds Sought for New South Bay Levees

A new project seeks to raise $1.5 billion to build new levees at salt ponds like this one near Alviso.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein will announce the formation of a public-private partnership Thursday to help raise $1.5 billion to build levees that would protect homes and businesses in the South Bay endangered by rising seas and potential flooding.

The proposed work is part of a 50-year plan to convert 15,000 acres of shoreline into natural marsh, providing habitat for birds, fish and other mud-loving creatures.

Feinstein will urge Bay Area foundations, business leaders and government agencies to join the partnership to help build levees that will replace eroding 100-year-old berms that form salt ponds.

The group, led by Steve McCormick, the president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, will work to protect from flooding 40,000 acres of public land, including the tiny community of Alviso.

"This project isn't just a good thing to do right now - it's absolutely necessary and critical," McCormick said. "A significant area along the South Bay rim is imperiled by inundation as existing levees inevitably collapse. No single source - private, federal, state or local - can pay for this work."

Salt flats have been a fixture of the shoreline since at least the Gold Rush. The shoreline flats were developed by salt manufacturers Leslie and later Cargill, which eventually sold most of its salt ponds to the state and federal governments.

Some 3,000 acres around the bay have been restored over the past decade. Much of the remaining 12,000 acres will require costly infrastructure improvements. The plan Feinstein is championing is to build levees so that the berms behind them can eventually be breached without endangering Silicon Valley real estate, including water treatment facilities, roads, utilities, libraries and schools.

"The berms around the salt ponds were not designed to act as flood control, but they have served that purpose," said John Bourgeois, the director of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. "There are literally thousands of acres that we cannot restore until we have levees in place, so the restoration of the bay is really dependent on this levee replacement project."