Laguna de Santa Rosa

State grant gives Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation chance to restore 175 acres of wetlands

Anna Armstrong, PRESS DEMOCRAT

A stretch of farmland along the Laguna de Santa Rosa floodplain could become a new home for steelhead, coho salmon and wading birds as part of a major wetland restoration effort now backed by more than $1 million in state funding.

The Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation was awarded a $1.05 million grant in late February from the California Wildlife Conservation Board to begin planning restoring 175 acres of farmland between Sebastopol and Forestville back into riparian and wetland habitats.

The grant marks a major turning point for the foundation, which will now be able to take on its largest singular project in the foundation’s 37-year history.

The site sits along the laguna just north of Gravenstein Highway on land owned by the Lafranchi family ranch, a property that has been farmed for multiple generations. In 2024, Sonoma County Ag + Open Space purchased a conservation easement on a portion of the ranch to ensure it would be permanently protected.

The state funding will cover the costs of the design work, which includes environmental and hydrology studies, engineering plans and habitat assessments.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/03/10/state-grant-gives-laguna-de-santa-rosa-foundation-chance-to-restore-175-acres-of-farmland/

Habitats, Water, Wildlife, , , , , , ,

Sonoma County flood-map update

Marisa Endicott, PRESS DEMOCRAT

After years of back and forth, new flood maps with major implications for property owners’ land values, insurance rates and building costs along a watershed stretching from Santa Rosa to Rohnert Park are in a final phase of review and approval.

Sonoma County challenged maps produced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that come with flood insurance requirements and added building restrictions for those deemed in higher-risk flood areas of the Todd Creek watershed.

After the federal agency rejected its appeal, the county launched its own flood study in 2023, completed earlier this year. The results showed a different flood hazard designation for 289 — nearly one-third — of the 964 parcels affected, with more than half removed from a flood zone.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/11/12/sonoma-county-flood-map-update-could-ease-insurance-burden-for-many-add-risk-for-some/

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Seismic retrofit, repairs planned at regional wastewater treatment plant

Paulina Pineda, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Improvements are planned at the regional Laguna Wastewater Treatment Plant serving Santa Rosa and other cities to reduce risks of failure during an earthquake and repair other damage at the aging facility.

The repairs are planned within the headworks facility, the plant’s so-called workhorse where raw sewage is first collected and pretreated before it flows through the rest of the facility.

A city-funded study of the facility’s seismic loading and structural condition found significant deficiencies.

Gases emitted during the treatment process also have led concrete and metallic components of the facility to crack and corrode, said Tetyana Mokvyts, a water reuse engineer with Santa Rosa Water.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/santa-rosa-laguna-wastewater-plant-repairs/

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New restoration plan for Laguna de Santa Rosa

Laura Hagar Rush, SEBASTOPOL TIMES

The Laguna de Santa Rosa held an open house on Wednesday, February 21, to celebrate the release of the Laguna de Santa Rosa Restoration Plan. Funded by a grant from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife with matching funds from Sonoma Water, this document examines six potential restoration projects in the Laguna de Santa Rosa watershed.

Presented by Neil Lassettre of Sonoma Water and Scott Dusterhoff of the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI), this plan was several years in the making.

“So six years ago, we were here with folks from the public, many of you here in this hall, saying ‘Well, we were going to do this restoration planning effort.’ And here we are six years later, unveiling this restoration plan to you all. So this is really an exciting time for us,” Dusterhoff said.

Dusterhoff explained the two major phases of the project this way: “The first component was developing an understanding of how the Laguna used to look and how it used to function and the habitats that it was supporting. So that’s developing an understanding of the historical ecology,” he said. “And then after we understand how the Laguna used to look and how it used to function, we can understand the landscape change—so the magnitude of change from what was to what is. So that was part number one. Part number two then was using that information to develop this long term restoration vision—this long term idea of all of the habitats we want to bring back in the Laguna. So then, we took that vision and we dove deep on a few areas, and we came up with this master restoration plan,” he said.

Read more at https://www.sebastopoltimes.com/p/new-restoration-plan-for-laguna-de?

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$50 million Santa Rosa compost facility inches ahead as opposition from neighbors grows

Tyler Silvy, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

When Greg Eicher and his wife, Gulten Eicher, moved to a quiet stretch of Walker Avenue five years ago, they were ready to embrace a more rural lifestyle there in southwestern Santa Rosa.

They’ve got a heap of homegrown fruits and veggies on offer, raise chickens for fresh eggs and even recently began beekeeping. There’s also a farm cat — Tekir, which is Turkish for striped or tabby cat.

Greg Eicher said they knew they were moving in a few blocks from Santa Rosa’s Laguna Wastewater Treatment Plant, which handles wastewater for 230,000 residents from Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Cotati, Sebastopol and portions of unincorporated Sonoma County.

The Eichers occasionally get whiffs of what is treated at the plant. But Eicher said one waste-related facility is enough, and neighbors can’t abide a push by local governments to relocate a commercial-grade composting facility across the street from the Laguna site.

“This neighborhood has been putting up with the noise and the smell and the traffic — to the benefit of the entire city of Santa Rosa — for years,” Eicher said. “You’re doubling down on me.”

There’s no organized opposition yet, but thanks to leadership changes and the fits and starts of governmental negotiations for green-bin waste, neighbors have months, if not years, to coalesce and build their campaign against the proposal.

Until then, and perhaps for many more years, the future of green waste handling in Sonoma County will remain in limbo — with both tons of material and millions of ratepayer dollars continuing to go out of the county.

It’s been more than a year since the board of Zero Waste Sonoma — the renamed Sonoma County Waste Management Agency — voted to begin negotiations with Renewable Sonoma, a private company, to handle commercial-grade composting operations, a service not offered in Sonoma County since that company’s previous site was shut down four years ago in the wake of wastewater violations.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10023046-181/50-million-santa-rosa-compost

Agriculture/Food System, Land Use, Sustainable Living, , , ,

Santa Rosa proclaims flood emergency after 250 million gallons of treated sewage released into streams

Will Schmitt, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Santa Rosa officials said Tuesday that managers at the city’s wastewater plant have been forced to release at least 250 million gallons of treated sewage into two creeks and the nearby Laguna de Santa Rosa amid record inflow to the facility that began in last week’s storm.

The three-day deluge pushed more than five times the normal flow of wastewater and runoff into the city’s Laguna de Santa Rosa plant, City Manager Sean McGlynn told the City Council on Tuesday. It was the highest inflow ever recorded at the site, according to the city.

To avoid overwhelming the Llano Road facility, managers began last Wednesday releasing fully treated sewage into Santa Rosa and Colgan creeks and the rain-swollen Laguna, which overtook city blocks on the eastern edge of Sebastopol, including the upscale Barlow shopping and business district.

The emergency release is ongoing, city officials said Tuesday. All three waterways drain into the Russian River.

McGlynn’s report came as the City Council affirmed a local emergency declaration he made last week at the end of the storm. The move is meant to ensure the city has both the flexibility and legal protection to alter operations at its wastewater plant, where flows have abated but remain higher than normal.

Partially treated waste also was diverted last week into storage basins, with plans now underway to fully treat that sewage. That diversion took place from late Tuesday to Thursday afternoon and has not impacted nearby waterways, according to the city.

The plant has enough remaining storage space to handle the extra volume from this week’s rain, Santa Rosa Water officials said. They have yet to discover any damage at the plant stemming from the past storm, which dumped a one-day record of 5.66 inches of rain on Santa Rosa.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/9353682-181/santa-rosa-city-council-proclaims

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Santa Rosa wastewater plant releases treated sewage following deluge

Guy Kovner, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Overwhelmed by record rainfall this week, Santa Rosa’s regional wastewater treatment plant has released about 22 million gallons of treated sewage into two creeks and the Laguna de Santa Rosa since Wednesday, and the discharge will continue indefinitely with another storm on the way, officials said Friday.

All three waterways drain into the Russian River.

It was further evidence that the deluge, which swamped Russian River communities and displaced thousands of residents this week, had far-reaching impact.

The releases began Wednesday, a day after Santa Rosa received 5.66 inches of rain, a record for one-day precipitation dating back to 1902.

It took about a day for the added volume of sewage mixed with runoff to reach the plant on Llano Road, which treats wastewater from about 230,000 customers in Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Cotati and Rohnert Park.

The record-breaking rain from an atmospheric river that stalled over Sonoma County “put a total strain on the system,” said Emma Walton, interim director of Santa Rosa Water.

Santa Rosa’s was at least the second municipal treatment plant overwhelmed or knocked out by this week’s storm. Healdsburg earlier this week declared an emergency stemming from problems at its own flooded facility.

Rainwater seeping into Santa Rosa’s far-flung sewage collection system boosted the flow arriving at the plant to as much as 105 million gallons a day this week, the largest flow ever recorded.

Normal wintertime inflow is 19 million gallons per day, city spokeswoman Adriane Mertens said.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/9339767-181/santa-rosa-wastewater-plant-releases

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