Hoping to reduce flooding risk for thousands of people living in low lying areas and expand habitat for fish and wildlife, Silicon Valley’s largest water agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Thursday announced they have completed a $197 million project to build two miles of new levees along San Francisco Bay’s southern shoreline.
The new 15-foot-high clay and dirt structures stretch from Alviso Marina County Park to the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Environmental Education Center.
They are designed to protect homes and businesses against the type of winter storms that have severely flooded the low-lying community of Alviso multiple times with water up to 6 feet deep and which are posing more risk as sea level rises due to climate change.
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