1705 Brompton St. Petaluma CA 94954 • (707) 778-0629 • www.petaluma-tomorrow.org
March 16, 2007
Director, Pamela Tuft, AICP
27 Howard St.
Petaluma, CA 94952
Subject: Comment for the Public Record on the General Plan and DEIR
Dear Ms. Tuft:
Our general plan has a twenty-year planning horizon, but the built infrastructure resulting from it should last a century or more beyond that. As such, we need to approach it as a truly long-range plan.
Petaluma Tomorrow is concerned that the Draft General Plan, as written, is based the unstated assumption that key "macro" external factors will remain unchanged over this long-term planning horizon. We believe the plan must, at a minimum, surface and document this assumption. Ideally, it will go beyond that and include contingency planning, should certain key factors change in ways that are looking increasingly likely.
The macro external factors I refer to are related to global climate change and fossil fuel scarcity. In modest but commendable ways, the Draft General Plan does suggest a few steps to minimize our city's impacts on global climate change. Petaluma Tomorrow supports these efforts, and would support much stronger ones as well. But our concern in this letter is for the predictable effects of the twin global crises, not so much the cause. In addition to minimizing our contribution to the problem (quite tiny, in the global scheme of things), prudence demands that we prepare for the most predictable effects, at least, of climate change and energy scarcity on our city and watershed.
Macro Factor #1: Sea level rise
While the science is now overwhelming that the earth's atmosphere and oceans are warming at an alarming rate, it can be difficult to predict the impacts on any given geographical region. Will the Petaluma area receive more or less rainfall in the future? I don't know that anyone is making such predictions with any degree of confidence at this time.
However, some local impacts can reliably be predicted. Overall global warming will result in worldwide sea level rise, likely measured in feet (as opposed to a few millimeters or inches) in coming decades. As a city with considerable land at or near sea level, we cannot ignore this prediction.
I'll offer two citations documenting the mainstreaming of recent predictions of significant sea level rise. One is the Argus-Courier article of February 19, 2007, appended below, entitled, "Sea Level Will Rise In Petaluma, Too." The prediction cited there, from the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, is for a three foot rise within a century.
The other citation is among the most mainstream of publications, Sports Illustrated. SI's March 12, 2007 issue features an attention-grabbing (photoshopped) cover image of a Florida Marlins baseball player hip deep in sea water in their drowned stadium. The article also predicts a one-meter sea level rise by 2100, based on data from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), with disastrous ramifications for many built and proposed professional sports facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Florida.
If the Argus and Sports Illustrated are reporting on dramatic sea level rise, it is not a secret anymore, and our general plan needs to address it.
At a bare minimum, the plan should include an "Assumptions" section in the introduction, surfacing the plan's now problematic assumption that sea level will not change significantly during its planning horizon, or during the projected lifespan of buildings and infrastructure built under the plan.
Far preferable would be some level of contingency planning. I'm not an expert in the hydrology, but it seems to me any sea level rise of more than one or two feet within the next century or so would dramatically change how we develop the town, particularly when combined with the increasing severe storm events that are also widely predicted. Not only would any building on existing mapped floodplain become (even more) irresponsible, but many areas not currently considered flood prone would have to become off limits for building. In addition, I would think we would have to begin a systematic retreat from low elevation areas that are already built upon.
Macro Factor #2: Energy scarcity
Following sea level rise, the next in the order of high percentage predictions is that the scarcity and relative cost of energy will increase significantly in coming years and decades.
Energy scarcity will come about in one of two ways, not mutually exclusive. The first scenario is fossil fuel depletion. A great many experts are now saying that the world is at or very close to the point where it has burned half its usable oil and natural gas. What remains will be increasingly hard to extract, located in politically unstable parts of the world, and expensive. For an excellent synopsis of the peak oil argument and its ramifications for a western U.S. city, see the report just adopted by the City of Portland, OR, entitled "Descending the Oil Peak: Navigation the Transition from Oil and Natural Gas" ( http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=145732 ).
The other road to energy scarcity is through severe restrictions on fossil fuel usage, perhaps through steep carbon taxes, in an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions, as the effects of global warming become increasingly obvious and dire.
What about replacing oil and gas with energy from other sources, such as renewables, "clean coal" with carbon sequestration, or even nuclear? The is a complex question, but there is certainly no expert consensus that any other source can provide anything like the level of cheap energy oil and gas have provided for the past century. For extensive expert discussion of this question, refer to www.theoildrum.com
Here too, the prudent approach for our General Plan is to surface and document assumptions, and to include contingency planning should those assumptions prove wrong.
What would need to change in Petaluma if gasoline prices rise to, say, $10/gallon (in constant dollars), due to either oil scarcity or carbon taxation? Off the top of my head, I think traffic congestion would no longer be one of our top concerns. Instead, it would be replaced by the need for mobility options, and goods and services delivery, that did not require the use of private automobiles.
In sum, we are asking for a few changes in the General Plan that could keep it from becoming an irrelevant dead letter within a few short years, due to readily predictable, and amply documented, macro changes. Document major assumptions, and include a bit of contingency planning should the assumptions change. Let's not be remembered as the planners of a new Atlantis.
Sincerely,
Larry Modell, for Petaluma Tomorrow
1705 Brompton St.
Petaluma, CA 94954
(707) 778-0629
Sea level will rise in Petaluma, too
The Petaluma River, roughly at sea level, could rise three feet along with other Bay Area shorelines
Published: Wednesday, Feb 21, 2007
By DANE GOLDEN
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF
A predicted three-foot rise in sea level in the Bay Area during the next
century will also affect Petaluma, according to Will Travis, executive director
of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. The group issued the recent
report showing similar predicted changes to Bay Area shorelines.
If the prediction is correct, Travis said, “the tide will be three feet higher
over there [in Petaluma].”
The Petaluma River is actually a tidal slough situated roughly at sea level,
and rises and falls with Bay tides. Travis said that because of this, the river
and its adjacent areas would be susceptible to a corresponding rise in sea
level in the Bay Area and worldwide. Furthermore, he said, the Petaluma River
and the surrounding area would likely flood at a significantly higher level
than it does today.
The commission based its statements on last year’s Climate Change Report issued
by the California Climate Change Center, which said that in the last 100 years,
sea levels along California’s coast have risen about seven inches.
The report also said “If heat-trapping emissions continue unabated and
temperatures rise into the higher warming range, sea level is expected to rise
an additional 22 to 35 inches by the end of the century. Elevations of this
magnitude would inundate coastal areas with salt water, accelerate coastal
erosion, threaten vital levees and inland water systems, and disrupt wetlands
and natural habitats.”
And the warnings continue to pile up. The Climate Change Center’s estimates are
backed up by a report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
which said in its Feb. 2 report that sea levels are expected to rise up 7 to 23
inches worldwide by 2100. And on Sunday in San Francisco, the American
Association for the Advancement of Science issued a similar dire warning about
climate change.
Additionally, the U.S. Nation-al Climatic Data Center reported a few days ago
that last month’s average worldwide temperature was the warmest January ever
recorded.
Travis pointed out that the California Climate Change Center study said that
areas that are currently considered 100-year floodplain (meaning they have a 1
percent chance each year of flooding) will be more accurately considered a
10-year floodplain (meaning a 10 percent chance of flooding in any given year).
Petaluma is no stranger to flooding, the most recent major incident being the
Dec. 31, 2005 storms, which caused millions of dollars in damage.
The areas that flooded in the storm a year ago, and those of similar elevation
nearby would have a much greater likelihood of having more significant flood
damage. Additionally, any area between one and three feet above the Petaluma
River would be expected to be permanently under water by 2100.
That, of course, would be unless other action is not taken. The Petaluma River
already has some levees south of town, and more could potentially be built as
water rises.
Petaluma’s draft 2025 General Plan calls for the creation of a “river corridor”
of open space and widened banks north of the Payran flood control project, both
for public riverside access and increased flood capacity in the rivel channel.
And then there are local steps being taken to help prevent further worsening
climate change.
Sonoma County has taken steps to fight the greenhouse gases that cause global
warming. In 2005, all nine cities and the county committed to reducing
greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2015.
And Petaluma is currently under a yearlong building moratorium that prevents
building in the 100-year floodplain north of Payran.
David Yearsley, executive director of Friends of the Petaluma River and a man
who probably knows the Petaluma River as well as anyone, said that such a rise
in sea level would “have potential negative influence for all the good work we’ve
done trying to restore the wetlands.”
He said that several areas would be significantly impacted, including Haystack
Landing, the McNear Channel and the property owned by the Dry Creek band of
Pomo Indians adjacent to the river south of town, an area that some believe
might one day have a casino.
“The Pomo lands are definitely going under,” Yearsley said. “They would be
captured by wetlands.”
He said another area at risk would be the Redwood Landfill, unless levees are
built or other action is taken.
“It would create an island of trash out in the Petaluma marsh,” Yearsley said.
“It would be hard to contain those toxins.”
As far as the depletion of wetland species, he said that would depend on the
rate of change in their habitat, but he particularly worries about the
California Clapper Rail, an endangered species which has been making a
remarkable recovery of late.
“Birds that feed on or near the wetlands would lose their habitat,” including
the Clapper Rail, he said.
The bay commission’s Travis is encouraged by the attention his agency’s report
has received. With the recent increase in discussions about the effects of
global warming, people are seriously considering which actions to take to plan
for the future, he said.
And, he said, as opposed to earthquakes, which are unpredictable, “Climate
change is one of those things that we can do something about.”
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Terry Hankins A
predicted three-foot rise in the sea level would also affect Petaluma. The
Petaluma River Turning Basin is shown here. |
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RESOURCESSan
Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission: www.bcdc.ca.gov
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(Contact Dane Golden at dane.golden@arguscourier.com)
Copyright © 2007 Petaluma Argus-Courier