After decades of floods that devastated the communities of Pajaro and Watsonville—and flooded hundreds of acres of farmland—a group of local, state and federal lawmakers gathered near the banks of Corralitos Creek Wednesday to break ground on the Pajaro River Flood Risk Management Project, which will bring unprecedented flood protection to the area.
The groundbreaking ceremony drew dozens of people to Pajaro Valley Unified School District’s headquarters, which lies adjacent to the property where the construction will begin in the coming weeks.
The first phase of the project, Reach 6, runs from the Corralitos Bridge to Green Valley Road.
It was chosen to be first in part because, as the only part of the watershed not protected by a levee, it is more prone to yearly flooding. Heavy rain caused those rivers to overflow and flood Pajaro and parts of Watsonville.
Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency Executive Director Mark Strudley said that construction on Reach 4—the Pajaro River Levee portion of the project—could start within five years, with the design phase beginning next year.
While the $600 million for the project has been slated for the project, the full amount has not yet been allocated from state and federal appropriations, Strudley said.
“We already have $186 million from the federal government and $47 million from the state, but that’s not enough to fund Reach 4,” he said.
Costs for that reach include relocating residents and moving utilities that are currently in the path of the rebuild.
When complete, the project will give 100-year flood protection to the roughly 3,000 properties that lie within Pajaro Valley’s floodplain.
“This is 70 years in the making,” Santa Cruz County Supervisor Zach Friend said. “We’re turning the page from decades of fighting for a project, to what will now just be a handful of years of constructing a project to a new, safe and secure Pajaro Valley.”
In October 2022, elected leaders gathered at Atri Park near the Pajaro River to celebrate the full funding of the project.
California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas called the ceremony “a significant moment for this region and this community” that took work and advocacy by residents and elected leaders.
“It was this community—The Pajaro Valley, the community that never, ever gives up—relentless, persistent,” he said.
The project is essential as climate-driven weather calamities continue to wreak havoc on the state, Rivas said.
“California is on the frontlines of this climate crisis,” he said. “And that’s why prioritizing this project up and down the state is critical, especially in our most underrepresented and disadvantaged communities.”
Senator John Laird said the launch of the project is a “monumental achievement.”
“It’s a great testament to all this work that we’ve arrived here,” he said.
