Quick Take
State Sen. John Laird is backing new legislation that could help speed construction to repair the Pajaro River levee. Work to fix the river’s flood walls started earlier this year.
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A local state lawmaker is pushing a new bill to help speed up construction efforts to repair the Pajaro River levee to prevent further flooding in the Pajaro Valley.
State Sen. John Laird, whose District 17 includes Santa Cruz County, is proposing to expand the contracting tools available to the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency, which would allow the agency to repair the river’s flood walls more efficiently.
The agency, which is leading the river levee reconstruction project alongside the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is limited in the types of methods it can use to hire contractors for projects, which can often slow down a project’s timeline, according to a media release from Laird’s office.
“Communities along the Pajaro River have experienced repeated flooding over many decades, and the devastating 2023 floods made clear the importance of continuing to strengthen our flood protection infrastructure,” Laird said in the release.
Some of the additional contracting methods that could be available under Senate Bill 1055 include job order contracting — which allows an agency to hire contractors to complete various projects under one contract — and design-build, which combines two separate services (engineering and construction) into one contract.
In 2023, the PRFMA and the Army Corps of Engineers greenlit the construction of a new Pajaro River levee, which marked the culmination of a nearly 70-year struggle to replace an inadequate levee system.
Crews started work on the first reach of the river earlier this year, and are expected to continue through the summer. The project received $54 million in additional federal money in February, with the help of U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff. The new money will pay for the construction of the next reach and design process for the rest of the project — which is calculated to cost nearly $600 million. The agency is still working with federal officials to secure the remaining money needed.
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