Editorial: Officials trying to keep Ross Valley flood plan on track face big decisions

As it nears the end of its 20-year disappointing initiative, Marin County is right not to raise the annual Ross Valley flood control fee.

Progress toward its promised goal would be justification for raising the fee, but the Ross Valley project is completing a history of being mired in controversy, political battles, piles of costly engineering and environmental studies and a slow-moving bureaucracy.

The county Board of Supervisors decided to keep the fee the same, for the fourth consecutive year, with the average annual charge being $153.76.

Taxpayers have been right to wonder what they have gotten from the fee.

How much safer is the Ross Valley today than it was in 2007 when the program was started in the wake of the 2005 flood that caused an estimated $100 million in private and public property damage.

Since then, there have been some close calls. The area remains vulnerable. Costly delays – political and bureaucratic – thwarted public momentum to bolster public safety.

Some critics claim there are no solutions.

The most significant measures created by 20 years of fees include turning a nursery growing grounds west of Fairfax into an emergency stormwater detention basin and replacing some bridges.

Currently, the flood control work is stalled over the removal of an old bridge crossing San Anselmo Creek. The county has declared it unsafe and that the concrete span is an impediment that causes flooding. But San Anselmo opposes the plan. The controversy fueled a voter-approved initiative calling for the town to drop out of the 20-year project.

Brian Colbert, former San Anselmo mayor and now a county supervisor, says he hasn’t given up preserving the bridge, which was a popular gathering spot before the county barricaded the area as a public hazard.

Complicating the debate is the potential that removing the bridge, while possibly protecting San Anselmo from flooding, will increase the flooding risk downstream.

“I want to be clear on the record: I will do everything within my power within the confines of public safety to see that park reopen,” he said.

That’s the public dilemma in a nutshell.

How do you preserve the bridge and bolster flood protection?

Key to that answer, he says, will be the Federal Emergency Management Administration’s decision regarding the county’s plan.

Colbert’s leadership will be vital to solving this puzzle.

But increasing the flood fee to get there is a nonstarter.

The push for solutions to flooding in the Ross Valley has generated local controversy, even before the 2007 fee was passed by area property owners.  Difficulty in finding public consensus dogged the 2007 initiative and remains today. It seems as if nearly every proposed measure engineers came up with drew enough criticism to prompt officials to scrap them.

The public expected to get more – a lot more – for its investment – about $48 million. The local fee helped attract $20.9 million in state and federal grants, but the promise of the 20-year project remains largely unachieved while leaving the area vulnerable to more flooding.

At this point, it’s highly unlikely voters will renew the program. Deciding not to raise the fee is the right decision.