The Gull's Call - Jul/Aug/Sep 2024

CommunityNews Sea Level Rise Adaptation Planning Coming to Bay Farm Island From the City of Alameda C OMMUNITY ACTION FOR A SUSTAINABLE ALAMEDA (CASA) and the cities of Oakland and Alameda on the Oakland-Alameda Adaptation Committee (OAAC) are coordinating flood and sea level rise (SLR) adaptation projects that protect and restore water quality, habitat, recreation and community resilience in our neighborhoods. The OAAC is initiating three priority projects to prepare for sea level rise, storm-driven flooding, and rising groundwater while prioritizing natural habitat, nature-based solutions and green infrastructure. One of these projects, The Oakland-Alameda Estuary Project will affect our immediate surroundings. The OAAC is soliciting community feedback on its vulnerability analyses and adaptation alternatives through participation in this survey and/or in a community workshop coming in July. To be informed of the workshop please sign in and take the surveys. Please visit the following link to take the survey: tinyurl.com/muducwuw For additional information, visit: • www.alamedaca.gov/Departments/Planning Building-and-Transportation/Sustainability and-Resilience/Oakland-Alameda-Adaptation Committee • www.oaacadapt.org. The three OAAC interrelated projects are looking at near and long-term adaptation planning at various scales along our shorelines through the lens of equity and community co-creation using the best-available climate science to guide planning efforts. In the next few months, the OAAC is initiating design charettes and soliciting community input into these projects. While climate change and its impacts, such as sea level rise and increased storm severity, are quantifiable and measurable in the present, the precise amounts and speed of SLR can be influenced by human behavior. These three projects use key SLR amounts - benchmarks - to allow flexibility in implementation and funding, building, and planning of specific adaptation, instead of specific dates and predictions. This reflects best -available climate science and benefits the community - plans can be implemented when they are needed, instead of too late

or too early. The projects are being designed for three key elevation datums: 12-feet, 14-feet and 17-feet.

THE SUB-REGIONAL ADAPTATION PLAN PROJECT This project covers a large geographic area also referred to as the San Leandro operational landscape unit (OLU) and covers large stretches of Oakland and the City of Alameda, from the Bay Bridge touchdown in the north to Oyster Bay in the south. The project will start a planning framework to coordinate the future protection of shoreline communities from projected sea level and groundwater rise. Additional co-benefits created through this project include: enhancing transportation and recreation corridors, increasing access to the Bay, reducing flood exposure, and implementing nature-based solutions for shoreline communities in the Oakland Alameda Subregion. The Sub-Regional Adaptation Plan project is scheduled to complete its final report in the summer of 2025. The project will conduct rounds of community engagement through 2024 and 2025 to guide the development of the final, long-term Adaptation Plan by the end of 2025.

July | August | September 2024 9

The Gull’s Call