Flood board weighs FEMA grant as berm costs climb
On Monday, Oct. 12, the Flood Control Board takes up a familiar problem: how to pay for the town's flood defenses. Members will consider formally obligating a FEMA Flood Mitigation Assistance grant for the Marina Village Flood Berm Project, the next step in raising and fortifying the levee that protects homes on Harbor, Channel, Echo and Yolo. The same meeting brings a response to a resident request to dredge San Clemente Creek and the selection of a new board chair and vice chair.
The money picture remains tight. Minutes from the board's August meeting, attached to Tuesday's packet, show the Town recently accepted a $105,000 grant from the Marin Community Foundation to cover preliminary engineering -- survey work, an environmental constraints memo, geotechnical evaluation -- on the Marina Village berm, matched dollar for dollar by the Town. Staff estimate design alone will run $1.5 million to $1.8 million, with construction costing roughly $10 million. Board Member Wolfers pressed for a ballpark total project cost, noting only about $250,000 is currently available against that design need.
The scale of the broader problem came into sharper focus at the same meeting, when the board and residents discussed a far larger fix: a full flood-protection project running from Marine Country Mart to Paradise Drive, shielding regional assets including the CHP station and Highway 101, estimated at $190 million. Chair Blomgren argued such a project should not fall to Corte Madera alone. Resident Roy Wolford of Seawolf Passage laid out the alternatives -- the full regional berm, or cheaper interim measures like removable masonry panels or water-filled "guppy tube" barriers running $65,000 to $100,000 per home -- and suggested the roughly 1,100 at-risk properties in the flood zone could pool their purchasing power.
Frustration showed through the discussion. Board Member Wolfers said he felt largely unable to give residents meaningful answers about when a durable fix might arrive, and questioned whether a public-private task force could move faster than the Town alone. The urgency was underscored by an account read into the record from a Mariner Cove resident who said she found no sand or bags at the sandbag station ahead of an August high tide -- part of why resident Roy Wolford has pushed for a joint session of the board, Town Manager, Mayor and Town Attorney to sort out who is actually responsible for flood defense townwide.