Since September 2021, City staff has been working on dredging permits for City owned parcels and on behalf of 101 property owners along the San Rafael Canal. These permits include the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and CA State Lands Commission. The City coordinated an “umbrella permitting” project to streamline the permitting process and maximize the cost benefit of burdensome permitting efforts to the City and individual property owners. This permitting effort would allow private property owners to dredge their own parcels with a city master contract in 2022, which would complement the US Army Corps dredging of the federally authorized channel (essentially the middle of the Canal). The full dredging of the Canal has not been completed since 2002.
The City Council authorized the master contract with Dutra on October 17th, the same contractor of the federally authorized channel. Staff expects the contractor to begin dredging individual parcels in early November 2022