The cost overruns were blamed on toxins found in the area from area industrial users like gas stations and dry cleaners.Īlso, engineers had to lower the creek bed 5 feet for flood control and to assist fish migration. He also helpfully reminded readers that the project was supposed to cost $6.2 million when it was conceived a decade prior. My former colleague Mike McCoy who covered the city of Santa Rosa at the time, did the math: The cost was $9,259 per foot. Participants wait at the opening of the Santa Rosa Creek culvert for a tour of the underground waterway in Santa Rosa, Tuesday, Sept. Santa Rosa Creek west of Santa Rosa Avenue was grotesquely manipulated and still more natural vegetation removed.Ī decade later, seeing what damage had been wrought, activists tried to plant trees literally in the cracks of dirt where the concrete had given way. Plans for putting Spring and Matanzas creeks into concrete channels at Doyle Park never happened.īut folks will likely remember that the concreting did, in fact, continue in some parts. Rattigan State Building.īut fortunately, that first, awful foray into undergrounding inspired significant, and eventually somewhat successful, backlash. ![]() Santa Rosa city environmental specialist Steve Brady illuminates the storm drain outfall draining dozens of downtown downspouts into the Santa Rosa Creek underground culvert running under City Hall from Santa Rosa Avenue to E Street in Santa Rosa, Tuesday, Sept. In the winter, city crews told members of the tour that the water has been marked about 20 feet high on the walls. This time of year there is a half-inch of murky water in most spots down here. It’s a reminder that things from our gutters, from our streets, from our driveways and drains end up here, at our feet and out there flowing west. Light shining into it, it stretches without seeming end heading north. They are also dripping something that looks like blue eyeliner.Ībout halfway toward E Street, the 36-inch pipe labeled “D St outfall” opens into our culvert. He’s missing teeth, his red nose is marred with black smudges and his eyes are bloodshot. Half of his hair is fire orange, the other half a deep red. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat)įirst, he’s massive. 19, 2023, were part of Creek Week events in Santa Rosa. With that, using headlamps and flashlights, we headed into the subterranean darkness.Ī tour group wearing headlamps and waterproof footwear walks past graffiti of a clown, the favorite of Santa Rosa city officials conducting tours through a huge underground culvert where Santa Rosa Creek was diverted under the present City Hall from Santa Rosa Avenue to E. “That created about 40 acres of land that we are going to walk under.” ![]() ![]() ![]() “It was planned to be an open concrete channel, but an agency raised funds … to make it a culvert versus an open channel,” Brady said. That is about $8.3 million in today’s dollars, Brady said, noting that it’s probably a lowball figure because of increased environmental regulations in place now as opposed to six decades ago.Įven at what feels like a paltry $840,000 in the 1960s, it feels like we’ve been paying the price ever since. That amount of concrete would have to delivered in roughly 1,200 standard truckloads.Īnd at the time of its construction, it cost $839,290. Our lead guide on this day was Steve Brady, senior environmental specialist with the city.īrady gave us a short history of how this culvert came to be and shared some oddities of its creation: It was built between 1963-64 the culvert, just 1,500 feet in length and about 23 feet underground, houses 2.4 million pounds of steel and is made of 11,000 cubic yards of concrete. Guided by city crews, we quasi-spelunkers donned waterproof footwear (or semi-waterproof in my case) and climbed down into the creek bed from the park at the eastern end of the Prince Memorial Greenway (think “The Fish” statue). 19, 2023, as part of Creek Week events in Santa Rosa. A tour group with headlamps and waterproof footwear learns about the diversion of Santa Rosa Creek under the present City Hall from Santa Rosa Avenue to E Street in 1964 before heading down the dark culvert, Tuesday, Sept.
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