Belmont Creek restoration continues in midst of tight deadline

The effort would consist of removing invasive vegetation, while also revegetating eroded creek banks. About 36 trees would be removed, most of them eucalyptus, although about 48 would be replanted. 

Due to the project’s grant stipulations, the project must be completed by next year, which means construction must adhere to a specific schedule. Sean Rose, principal at S.R. Engineering, the city’s consultant, said they’d specifically like to begin tree removal as soon as possible. 

“That’s to get started now ahead of the nesting bird seasons which is critical. Otherwise, we could get into a situation where the construction window starts in June. If we start then, and we find nesting birds, it could shut the project down, and we have to be out of the creek by October, so it's a very tight window,” Rose said. 

The construction would be part of a broader effort to mitigate increasingly intense stormwater flooding over the last several years, both within the city of Belmont and the nearby Harbor Industrial Area. The latter is technically unincorporated, though the city hopes to annex it in the near future, but it has seen some of the worst effects of the area’s most severe storms. The nearby Belmont Creek serves as a primary storm collector that feeds into the San Francisco Bay, and while its design capacity was meant for a severe weather event anticipated every 10 years, “more intense events currently exceed the capacity of the system downstream,” according to city reports. 

Twin Pines Park is situated on the west side of El Camino Real, and while flooding often occurs on the eastern side of the corridor, Rose said the project would help mitigate flooding downstream, as the Belmont Creek bank erosion affects other parts of the city.

“That’s material that has been lost and then floated downstream. That sediment reduces the capacity of the channel downstream, so there's less capacity for more water to pass through in downstream areas that are more susceptible to flooding because they're low lying,” Rose said. “That reduction in channel capacity exacerbates flooding in those downstream areas.” 

The city hopes to start the project in March, with the bulk of construction occurring in the summer. Part of the park will be closed during construction. 

The total cost estimate for the first phase is nearly $4 million. The second phase of the project is estimated to cost about $5 million, though it is currently not funded. 

alyse@smdailyjournal.com

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