SFO plans to surround airport with 10-mile wall to protect against rising bay waters (only $587 mil)

Mercury News ^ | 10/11/19 | PAUL ROGERS

[Libloather]

Concerned that rising waves will flood runways and buildings in the coming years, officials at San Francisco International Airport are moving ahead with a $587 million plan to build a major new sea wall around the entire airport.

The plan, the latest example of the growing cost of climate change in California, involves driving steel pilings - sheets with interlocking edges - into the mud and also constructing concrete walls in some places around all of the airport’s 10-mile perimeter.

“This is something we’ve been looking at for many years,” said Doug Yakel, a spokesman for the airport. “What’s changed is the level of protection that is needed.”

The airport, built in 1927 in a cow pasture at the edge of San Francisco Bay, serves 55 million passengers a year, making it the nation’s seventh busiest. But its runways sit only about 10 feet above sea level.

[ChildOfThe60s]

These people are incapable of embarrassment. They are so righteous and so corrupt it means nothing to them how they look to normal people.

Follow the money....follow the money....continue to follow the money. And ye shall arrive at the truth.

[Mr. Jeeves]

So this is OK for the Bay ecosystem but when a new runway was proposed a few years ago - involving no tide-blocking wall - the local eco-Left went into orbit and stopped it?

[hal ogen]

So many corrupt criminals...so little time. What absolute thievery from taxpayers and what typical lunacy. We need lots of rope.

[SunkenCiv]

• Switzerland boosts train services to France as 'flight-shaming' gains momentum
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[ThunderSleeps]

Great at a little less than a foot per century the wall will be needed in about a thousand years. But sure, blow money on it now because it fits with your agenda.

[patriotfury]

Dude, that was deep !

[lurk]

Look for the union label. And somehow a few million will leak into Aunt Nancy’s pockets.

[Veto!]

Exactly. I lived there in the ‘70s and it was always an adventure landing, hoping the wheels cleared the swamp and landed on the runway. Earthquakes don’t help either.

My old friend who was in the construction biz said that SF Bay surroundings were really treacherous to build on. Water rising, fissures, mud, sink holes, all that stuff.

But suddenly Greta discovered it as part of her search for her lost childhood.

[patriotfury]

Bet we could sell these genius green new deal types on a plan to place giant pontoons, or inflatable floats under the whole airport, you know, to keep the airport seaworthy...

[SecondAmendment]

👍

[DannyTN]

When the earthquake strikes, will the wall break first or will San Francisco slide into the ocean resulting in water flowing over the wall?

[John S Mosby]

Thank you for posting... It is NOT about the “climate change” melting of the ice caps showing up at SFO airport perimeter, and no where else in the world to the same extent.

Water being non compressible generally would have to rise everywhere in the world as it finds its “level”.

The airport LAND is sinking— now why would that be? Possibly because it was dredged in the first place, and, just as in the many earthquakes— dredged land when jiggled— liquifies (just like we beach sand when jiggled).

Excellent post— and it should be all over the news that they are using a FALSE narrative to justify huge sums of money for ANOTHER causality purpose— instead of just calling it what it is! Subsidence.

[SuperLuminal]

Seems to me that the most significant problem with this sea-rise will be that suicide jumps from the Golden Gate Bridge would no longer work properly... All the ER’s will just be full of broken or sprained ankles...

[Black Agnes]

That was actually my first thought. Who has a brother in law that will get the contract...

[NorseWood]

Diane Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blume, is a partner in a construction company that has won billions and billions of dollars of government contracts on the west coast. They have helped build many of the rail systems in Southern California, the Bay Area, and are probably involved with the new high-speed rail line up though the valley.

[ptsal]

Expand the airport in Sacramento
Make SFO a commuter heliport
Send me the savings on my low bid

[blueplum]

forget the cost of the wall. This is creative thinking on how to not build a project while at the same time enriching the elite group of “Enviromental Activists” who will have a field day raising money on disturbance of habitat lawsuits:

Harbor seals:
http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/education/marine-mammal-information/pinnipeds/pacific-harbor-seal/

A dozen shark species - including “Leopard Shark, Pacific Angel Shark, Brown Smoothhound, Broadnose Sevengill, Soupfin Shark.”
https://www.sfbaywildlife.info/species/sharks.htm

sea lions:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/27/southern-sea-lions-gravitating-to-marin-northern-california/

and whales, like Humphrey and Delta and her daughter Dawn:
http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/patients/success-stories/delta-dawn-sacremenot.html

[Senormechanico]

I’m afraid the extra weight of all those pilings and concrete will cause the airport to “Capsize”.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Why not just shut the airport down? The carbon savings would yuge.

[Vince Ferrer]

There are two things affecting the bay at much greater rates than the ocean level rising. One is what others have mentioned, that the airport was built on a landfill and subsidence is the problem, not rising water.

Another thing is that the bay is actually not nearly as deep as it looks, and it is filling in with silt at a much higher rate than the ocean is rising.

This is the Alviso marina, in the south of the bay, which in the 1800's used to be a port for steam ships to commute to San Francisco. After a while they couldn't dredge it to keep ships that big, and it became a marina for small personal boats. Since the 80's it was completely closed for boats, because it was completely blocked by marsh grasses, as in the photo. Recently the marsh was dredged to allow small boats to access the marina and be able to get out to the actual water, a couple hundred yards away these days. but already, about a third of the bay, all the way from the south shore up to Dumbarton Bridge. is so shallow that only kayaks and canoes can access it.

In 200 years, well before sea level rises, the San Francisco Airport might be surrounded by grassland.