Đê chắn sóng "sinh thái" đầu tiên của khu vực Vịnh San Francisco chính thức khai trương tại Palo Alto Baylands.

A cool breeze swept through Palo Alto’s Baylands Nature Preserve as local and federal representatives opened the Bay Area’s first nature-based horizontal levee — a project officials hope protects against rising sea levels and helps filter wastewater going into the bay, while boosting the native marshland ecosystem.

Dozens of representatives from various agencies, from Palo Alto to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, gathered Thursday at the nature preserve for the levee’s grand opening. Construction on the $4.6 million nature-based levee finished last month, and local officials hope it serves as a model for other bayfront communities.

“We are thrilled to lead by being the first and really hope that our project here informs other levees in the Bay Area to support climate adaptation and solutions to sea level rise,” Brad Eggleston, director of public works for Palo Alto, said at the grand opening.

The horizontal levee stretches about 500 feet near the Byxbee Park vehicle entrance, between the bay’s tidal channels and the city’s Regional Water Quality Control Plant at 2501 Embarcadero Way. It features a gradual slope of vegetated earth going into the bay’s tidal channels, with more than 2,000 native plants and hundreds of native seeds, which will be irrigated by the water plant’s treated effluent.

In contrast, traditional levees have a much steeper slope and are often made of rocks and concrete, which researchers have said can interrupt estuary ecosystems.

Representatives praised the project during the grand opening event for its variety of potential benefits and for the broad coalition that helped get the levee installed. Community organizations Association of Ramaytush Ohlone, Save the Bay, Nuestra Casa and Environmental Volunteers grew and planted the native flora, and collaborated to write informative signs detailing the marshland’s ecological and sociological history.

Researchers from the United States Geological Survey, California State University Channel Islands and University of California Davis will study the levee over the coming years to better understand its ecological benefits, such as providing more habitat to the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse. Small white poles poke out from the ground between the marsh plants, which will help measure how the levee interacts with sea level changes over time and in the turning of tides.

“The horizontal levee is an excellent example of the work we do with hundreds of partners through the Bay Area,” Susan Adams, board president of the Association of Bay Area Governments and a Rohnert Park councilmember, said. “The problems before us are going to ask more of all of us — more connection, more communication, and more working across agency lines.”

On top of the benefits of habitat restoration, the levee serves as another filtering system for the water control plant, part of the city’s $369-million renovation of the four-basin treatment facility. The plant treats sewage from Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and Stanford University by removing ammonia, nitrogen and other contaminants from the wastewater before it’s released into the bay. The renovations began in 2022 and are scheduled to complete in 2028.

A third touted benefit is the levee’s ability to protect the shoreline from flooding and rising sea levels — a mối quan tam ngày càng tăng across the region as governments inspect their waterfront borders. Mountain View finished restoring 435-acres of salt pond into a revived bayfront marsh habitat đầu năm nay with some similar effects.

Palo Alto Mayor Vicki Veenker said she hopes other cities will begin installing their own living levees soon, as concerns around climate change and rising sea levels continue.

“It has both good habitat restoration and climate adaptation in one. We have a lot of projects that do one or the other, this does both,” Veenker told Palo Alto Weekly. “Imagine if this was all around the bay, it would have a tremendous impact.”