Port of San Francisco, Army Corps of Engineers Planning for Rising Bay Waters

The Port of San Francisco and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is undertaking a multi-year effort to study and plan for sea-level rise in San Francisco, where the city's bay shoreline is expected to rise as much as seven feet. 

John King reports on the study for the San Francisco Chronicle, including details on the scope of the plan, which plans on a 100-year timeline for 7.5 miles of the shoreline, from Fisherman’s Wharf south to the Hunters Point shipyard. The study is a component of the Port of San Francisco's Waterfront Resilience Program. 

"A tentative outline of any plan and its potential costs won’t emerge before next spring. But some ideas that are in the mix — including locks on Mission Creek, and letting industrial land near the southern waterfront revert to natural conditions — hint at how profoundly the city’s relationship to the bay could change in coming decades," according to King. 

"To draw up a potential plan, seven different response scenarios must be sorted through by the Army Corps and a half dozen city agencies. The final product would seek to protect inland resources while maintaining or improving public access to the bay," adds King.

As noted in the article, the Port of San Francisco is already working to reinforce the city's shoreline from rising bay waters, with the Embarcadero Seawall Program—another component of the Waterfront Resilience Program.