Santa Clara Valley Water District crews are replacing a concrete channel section of Hale Creek in Mountain View with a natural one comprising soil and rocks. The work is part of the Hale Creek Enhancement Pilot Project, slated for completion by the end of the year.
The impacted area, approximately 650 feet in length and just shy of a total acre, is occurring in the creek stretching from Marilyn Drive upstream to Sunshine Drive. The project, in the planning stages since 2014, carries a $6.38 million price tag, paid from the voter-approved Safe, Clean Water and Natural Flood Protection Fund. It is one of two such ongoing Valley Water projects, the other in Gilroy.
“We’re restoring a natural habitat,” said Bhavani Yerrapotu, Valley Water deputy operating officer. “Most residents would like to see a natural creek rather than a concrete channel.”
The project also will bolster flood protection. The current concrete channels were constructed in the early 1960s, following area flooding in the 1950s. But a 2016 report noted a structural stability study in the early 2000s that “identified almost all sections of Hale Creek as being in danger of structural failure in the near term, with some sections faring worse than others.”
While flooding seems far-fetched in an area experiencing a long-standing drought, climate change experts warn that massive, flash flooding could occur. The most recent example is the 1,000-year flash flood that devastated the Dallas, Texas, area earlier this month. That disaster came on the heels of a study concluding that climate change doubled the chances of a massive California flood from an atmospheric river, not seen since the devastating floods of the 1860s.
Valley Water officials said the project reflects a “commitment to restoring and improving stream channel natural functions. (The project) will examine a new way of converting concrete-lined channels with natural channels, which are more resilient to damage from intense rainfall patterns caused by climate change.”
Also part of the project is planting native plants “to foster a healthy creek habitat,” Valley Water officials said.
Following the completion of construction, Valley Water crews will monitor and maintain the site for three years to establish the plantings. The native plants include mulefat, blue elderberry, common snowberry, spreading bush and Santa Barbara sedge.
The current construction schedule has crews working 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays, and accessing the creek from Marilyn Drive or Sunshine Drive. Equipment and vehicles are parked in the lot behind the Mountain View Central Seventh-day Adventist Church on Springer Road.
Conscious of construction noise, crews are using a Giken “silent piler,” Yerrapotu said, which pushes piles into the ground using static energy, creating minimal noise.
“It’s been going very well,” she said of the work thus far.
For more information, call Jose Villarreal at (408) 630-2879 or email [email protected].
