CITY OF 5T3
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SANJOSE
Sam T. Liccardo
CAPITAL OF SILICON VALLEY
MAYOR
March 13,2017
Santa Clara Valley Water District
5750 Almaden Exwpy.
San Jose, CA95118
Dear Chair Varela,
I was disappointed that, despite repeated requests from our City Manager and myself more than a
week prior to the hearing, the Santa Clara Valley Water District declined to send any engineers,
hydrologists or managers with relevant expertise to our March 9 City Council hearing on the
recent Coyote Creek flooding. As we've previously discussed, City staff has had difficulty
eliciting information from the Water District in recent days that would enable us to better
anticipate flooding, so I was equally disappointed to learn that your attorneys' concerns would
compel your agency to decline to meaningfully participate in our public effort to identify and fix
what went wrong to create the devastation of February's flood.
We need answers to many important questions to prevent this kind of damage from happening
again. While your Government Affairs Director read a formal statement on behalf of the Water
District, he could not offer substantive answers to any of the questions posed by the City Council
regarding stream flow data, flood protection, stream channel maintenance, and other issues that
fall under the subject matter expertise and jurisdiction of the Water District.
As I've said before, this event took place in my city, and I accept responsibility for fixing the
shortcomings in our emergency preparation and warnings. To do so, we need the best
information, and we need cooperation of the agency tasked with flood prevention and
management. At our March 9 meeting, City staff, my colleagues and I publicly acknowledged
the City's failure to provide adequate and timely notice to San Jose residents and businesses
about the potential for flooding. We also approved a number of immediate actions that will help
us avoid these issues going forward
However, the absence of your staff prevented the Council from hearing their insights about how
to rectify the communication breakdowns between the Water District and the City EOC
regarding the timing and seriousness of flood threats. As you know, City staff have identified
inaccurate Water District data regarding channel capacity and the repeatedly flawed estimates of
flooding risk as key obstacles to providing timely notice to residents. Vastly improving
interagency communication and flood monitoring protocols is an urgent priority.
200 East Santa Clara Street, 18th Floor San Jose, CA 95113
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I remain committed to working collaboratively with the Water District, the County, and our
many other partners to fix these shortcomings as quickly as possible. To do this, we need all the
facts about what happened before, during and after this event, as well as an open and honest
discussion about the responsibilities of our respective public agencies when it comes to flood
protection and mitigation.
Since the Water District did not send a representative equipped to answer our questions at the
March 9 hearing, I have included a list of a few of the questions raised by our City Council and
the public, and have attempted to list them more succinctly for your convenience (see attachment
A). Given the urgency of our task, we would appreciate the Water District's response to these
questions as soon as possible.
I hope that meetings between our respective staffs will enable forthright feedback about the
findings and recommendations of the City's after-action report so we can immediately formulate
a plan for addressing those items that will require action from both the City and Water District.
Given the urgency of these issues, I also propose that we move up the date of our joint City
Council - Water District Board meeting to take place the week of March 27th or the week of
April 3rd, at a mutually convenient time, and that we focus that meeting on eliciting factual
information relevant to our actions in the weeks ahead.
Thank you for your prompt attention to both this request and to the continued invitations from
our professional staff to engage in discussions on how we can better protect our residents from
flooding in the future.
Sincerely,
Sam Liccardo
Mayor
200 East Santa Clara Street, 18lh Floor San Jose, CA 95113
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ATTACHMENT A: Questions for the Santa Clara Valley Water District
City's Warning and Emergency Protocols
•
Does the Water District have any insights or opinions about the City's proposed
improvements to its own warning systems and resident notification protocols? What
additional improvements would the Water District suggest?
Water District's Flow Rate and Channel Capacity Data:
•
How does the Water District explain the large gaps between the quantitative descriptions
of creek channel capacity that the Water District provided City staff the week before the
flood, and the rates at which flooding occurred in Rock Springs, at William Street,
Watson Park, and the mobile home parks near Oakland Road?
•
What is the degree of accuracy of the hydrologic model used by the Water District to
predict the overflows from Anderson spillway, and why were the overflow estimates and
timing of peaks changed so frequently in advance of and during President's Day
weekend?
•
What is the Water District doing to improve stream gauge accuracy? Is the Water
District considering additional stream gauges, for instance, at Rock Springs?
•
Data regarding stream flow rates in Coyote Creek, both during and immediately prior to
the flooding, on the Water District website have been removed and altered since the flood
on Tuesday, February 21st. Why?
•
Did the Water District's descriptions of Coyote Creek channel capacity account for
sediment and vegetation growth in those channels? If not, why not and how much of the
aforementioned gaps (in predicted and actual channel capacity) can be explained by
sediment and vegetation? What are the other factors that could have contributed to the
gaps in predicted and actual channel capacity?
•
Does the Water District monitor sediment accumulation and vegetation growth in the
creeks for flood protection purposes? If not, is it the view of the Water District that these
are not substantial factors in flood prevention or stream channel capacity? If so, what
communication has the Water District had with the City or other Coyote-adjacent
property owners about flood risk resulting from sediment accumulation and vegetation
growth?
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•
The Water District completed a study as recently as October 5, 2016 on flood protection
needs in Rock Springs, and described in great detail (p. 21) the sources of information
behind its channel capacity estimate (then 7,000 cfs) in that part of the creek. A few
weeks later, the channel flooded at that location at a flow rate at least 2,500 cfs lower.
Why?
•
For other segments of Coyote Creek that flooded in the recent storms, how recently were
hydrologic studies performed to determine the creek channel capacity data provided by
the Water District to the City of San Jose?
•
A Water District Emergency and Security Manager, Dale Jacques, was recently quoted in
the Mercury News stating that the City of San Jose should not have relied on Water
District data regarding channel capacity and flow rates, but should "augment our
information with their own analysis." What analysis, exactly, should every city perform?
Why can't cities rely upon the Water District's projections and data? Should every city
and town in Santa Clara County should hire its own hydrologists? If so, will the Water
District - as the sole agency collecting tax revenue to provide flood prevention and
expertise countywide - provide funding for those additional staff?
•
The Water District suggests that they had field personnel monitoring conditions along the
Coyote corridor prior to and during the event. Where were those staff positioned and
what were they communicating to either the Water District's or the City's EOC?
•
Are there technological improvements that can be implemented with the Water District's
sensors at key locations (e.g., Edenvale, William Street) that will provide a clearer
indication of flood risk?
Stream Maintenance:
•
In light of City Attorney Rick Doyle's March 10, 2017 memorandum, can the Water
District cite any written authority -e.g., a statute, court opinion, or contractual agreement
- for its contention that individual property owners bear responsibility for clearing
vegetation and removing sediment for flood protection within the creek channels of our
County?
•
Given the fact that there are hundreds of property owners along Coyote and many other
creeks in this County, does the Water District contend that each individual owner has
responsibility for obtaining dredging and hauling equipment, and obtaining permits from
the Water District and other agencies to perform the work? Beyond the post-flood
statements of Water District spokesperson Rachael Gibson that "each property owner is
responsible for clearing their own section" of the creek, what has the Water District done
to proactively inform property owners Countywide of this purported responsibility?
What has the Water District done to inform cities Countywide of this purported
responsibility?
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(408) 292-6422 www.sjmayor.org
•
The Water District has several pages on its website that describe its work on sediment
and vegetation removal within creek channels for flood protection. Is there any public
information on the Water District's website that informs property owners how they
should obtain dredging equipment, permits, and other requirements to preform stream
maintenance for flood prevention purposes?
•
What does the Water District need from the City of San Jose and other property owners
to perform flood-mitigating stream channel maintenance along the flood-prone portions
of Coyote Creek?
•
The Water District asked voters to approve Measure B in 2012, listing among the projects
within Priority El: "Vegetation Control and Sediment Removal for Flood Protection."
According to the Water District, this parcel tax measure allocated $59.2 million (in 2015
dollars) to "support the District's ongoing vegetation control and sediment removal
activities that reduce flood risk by maintaining design conveyance capacity of flood
protection projects. These activities also provide access for maintenance personnel and
equipment. The project includes: controlling in-stream vegetation growth, removing
sediment at appropriate intervals, removing hazardous trees, and performing weed
abatement and pruning to provide access and establish firebreaks." If the Water District
is unwilling to take responsibility for comprehensive vegetation control and sediment
removal, will the Water District make those funds available to individual property owners
and cities throughout the County to do so?
District's Flood Control Projects and 2012 Measure B:
•
The voters approved the Coyote Creek Flood Protection Project as part of the 2000
Measure B, allocating $32 million to the project. Since then, the district continually
delayed implementation of the project, spending over $10 million on planning and design
until placing the project "on hold" last year until FY 2019, "due to need for development
of other planning projects that impact the Coyote Creek Project." What other projects
took priority over Coyote Flood protection? Under what criteria were those projects
deemed to be of higher priority? How was the public, including property owners and
residents in the Coyote Creek floodplain, notified about this change? and why?
•
At the March 9th, 2017 hearing at City Hall, Mr. Callender communicated that the Safe,
Clean Water and Natural Flood Protection Plan funded by the 2012 Measure B parcel tax
no longer exists. What was this plan replaced with?
•
Priority C2 of the 2012 Measure B Safe, Clean Water and Natural Flood Protection Plan
indicates that 5 out of 7 automated flood forecast and warning systems have been
implemented along various creeks. Coyote Creek is not one of those. What is the status
of such a system along Coyote Creek? How can the City participate in expediting its
implementation? How does the Water District determine priority of these systems? Do
these systems notify residents in multiple languages?
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•
Priority E2 of the 2012 Measure B calls on increased coordination with local
municipalities on flood communication. According to the Water District's published
records, in May 2016, the Water District continued engagement with Sunnyvale OES,
Cupertino OES, Cupertino Citizen Corps/CERT, and the San Francisquito Creek JPA.
Why was San Jose not included within the District's coordination efforts under this
priority?
•
The Rock Springs report, published in October 2016, indicates that flood protections for
the neighborhood would likely involve constructing a floodwall or setback. Is the
District considering options for a temporary floodwall between Needles Drive and Bevin
Brook?
•
Did the Water District deliver sandbags to known flooding locations, such as Rock
Springs and Williams Street, as it had in the flooding of 1997? If not, why not?
Anderson Dam and Upstream Flow Managemment
•
What is the maximum rate of outlet flow from Coyote Reservoir?
•
During the relevant days prior to and during the February floods, did the incoming flow
to Anderson Reservoir from Coyote Reservoir - which had also overtopped in February exceed Anderson's outlet flow capacity? Why did the District not mention inflows from
Coyote Reservoir in its press releases and reports about the outlet flow from Anderson
Reservoir and efforts to lower the water levels in Anderson?
•
What factors contributed to the Water District's decision to delay the release of water
from Anderson Reservoir until January 9th? How did that decision affect the risk of
flooding on February 21st?
•
Could SCVWD have managed the Coyote-Anderson dam system more proactively (i.e.
earlier release from the outlet pipe, earlier supplemental pumping over the spillway) to
attenuate a large peak flow such as was experienced?
200 East Santa Clara Street, 18lh Floor San Jose, CA 95113
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(408) 535-4800
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(408) 292-6422 www.sjmayor.org