Belmont Creek restoration efforts are underway near Twin Pines Park to reduce erosion and flooding risks for the local area and nearby cities, with hopes of starting work in two years.
Belmont Public Works Director Peter Brown said the project had been planed for several years and will restore water quality, remove invasive species of plants, re-plant vegetation, stabilize the banks and control erosion to protect property and infrastructure following a history of flooding in the area that affects jurisdictions during the wet winter.
“It’s all been born out of the local governments trying to reduce flood risk downstream for property owners,” Belmont Public Works Director Peter Brown said.
The project is about midway through the design phase, and the city hopes to start construction in 2025 and finish in 2026. The work is being funded through a 2020 grant from the California Department of Water Resources of $1 million to the city, with the city providing about $300,000 in funding. An additional $150,000 is from San Carlos and $150,000 from the county. The county and the cities have been working together as part of the Belmont Creek Flood Management Plan to try and address flooding during rain and deal with siltation from upstream sediment that often requires maintenance.
Belmont Creek starts at Water Dog Lake and runs for about three miles through Belmont’s downtown underneath Sixth Avenue and El Camino Real to the border of San Carlos before it empties into a slough in Redwood Shores. It flows through Twin Pines Park. Flooding has been a long-term concern in Belmont and San Carlos on Old County and Industrial roads for water going downstream to the flatland areas. During the New Year’s Eve storms, flooding in Belmont closed several Caltrain underpasses, including at Harbor Boulevard, where the Belmont Trailer Park at 100 Harbor Blvd. saw flooding for extended periods during the stormy winter season. In the future, the city is exploring the expansion of the Harbor Industrial Area through annexation and adding more office, life science, hotel and residential use. The potential expansion would add even more infrastructure needs for the area and ways to deal with more people and debris. Belmont has dredged a portion of the creek throughout the years, which has helped reduce flooding but not prevented all issues.
Significant flood erosion has occurred in the creek bed near Twin Pines Park, and the eroded bank causes water to move faster and pulls more sentiment downstream. The city wants to raise the creek bed and add a potential bypass culvert for additional capacity, which is a tunnel structure that channels water under a road. The work will affect parts of the parks, and the immediate area around the creek will be closed for work starting in 2025. The playground and concert areas will still be accessible during construction. While the initial work called phase one will focus on the Twin Pines Park area of the creek, the city is also looking for funding for phase two, which would include more slope enhancements and creek bed improvements down Belmont Creek.
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