Loma Prieta Chapter eNewsletter: December, Volume 2

"After RSAP’s first release in September, there was push and there was pull. Local governments and others objected to some of the mandatory standards proposed, calling for 'flexibility.' A November draft tacked in that direction, changing quite a few 'musts' to 'should' and demoting some of the Standards to 'planning tips.' Now it was the turn of the environmental coalition, some forty groups, to decry a 'watering-down.' Further redrafting ensued.

The result of these contending pressures seems, surprisingly, to please nearly everyone nearly well enough. 'We seem to have found the sweet spot,' says BCDC planning director Jessica Fain. The Sierra Club’s Gita Dev agrees: 'We are very happy with the results of the RSAP. Now,' she goes on, 'it’s time to get serious about execution.'”

Read the full Knee Deep Times article.
See more Bay Alive in the news.

Comment letter to San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise Resiliency District

"The Millbrae-Burlingame Shoreline Resilience Project is timely in that BCDC has just released its Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan (RSAP), which requires all Shoreline Adaptation Plans to meet BCDC’s RSAP guidelines. The RSAP’s One Bay Vision brings the whole region together to promote collaboration, protect shared assets and achieve common goals. These guidelines ensure a strategic, and forward-looking regional response to sea level rise that accommodates local variations and protects both vulnerable communities and a broad spectrum of public “assets,” including the societal and economic benefits provided by our Bay and its habitats as we plan for the realities with which sea level rise is confronting us. The RSAP emphasises that the health of the Bay habitats is as much at risk from sea level rise as the communities and infrastructure along the shoreline. For this reason, we are extremely concerned about planning efforts that could lead to potential harms to the Bay ecosystems such as encroachment, with fill, onto habitat in the Bay and we wish to express our deep concern over the proposed alternatives."

"Environmental groups, though also generally supportive of the plan, aren’t happy with those changes. Forty environmental groups including the Sierra Club and San Francisco Baykeeper argued in a letter to the agency that any weakening of the standards leaves the door open to uneven adaptation, with better-resourced areas pushing flooding and toxic contamination on to disadvantaged neighbors.

'If everybody reacts to the sea level rise with a levee or a sea wall, then the bay would turn into a bathtub,' said Gita Dev, vice chair of the Bay Alive campaign for the region’s three Sierra Club chapters. 'You still need a plan that works for the whole region and will take care of sea-level rise over time into the future.'"

Read the full POLITICO article.
See more Bay Alive in the news.

"Arthur Feinstein, who chairs the Sierra Club’s Coordinated Bay Alive Committee, said he’s disappointed that the new plan 'weakened some standards' around preserving undeveloped shoreline lands and nature-based sea level rise adaptation strategies.

'They could have gone back and said that you must apply these standards instead of you must consider these standards,' Feinstein said. 'That alone would change how it’s going to be implemented because it’s so much more forceful.'"

Read the full KQED article.
See more Bay Alive in the news.