SFO Shoreline Protection Program

SFO is leading the vanguard of large-hub airports in the U.S. that are built adjacent to bodies of water in planning for sea-level rise and embarking on development of a Shoreline Protection Program (SPP) to protect the airport from flooding in the event of a 100-year storm surge and future sea-level rise. Given SFO’s location on the San Francisco Bay, protecting the airport will ensure uninterrupted operations for SFO, which serves as a critical economic engine for the region as the largest employer in San Mateo County and a vital gateway to both domestic and international destinations. As the seventh busiest airport in the U.S., with nearly 58 million passengers traveling through the airport each year, SFO is an important regional transportation hub for the West Coast and San Francisco Bay Area.

ESA prepared the EIR for the SPP, which will remove the existing shoreline protection features along SFO’s eight-mile shoreline and construct a new shoreline protection system comprising a combination of reinforced concrete and steel sheet pile walls that will range in height from approximately 3.9 to 13.5 feet above the ground surface. SFO’s shoreline and western landside boundary are divided into 16 reaches. The SPP will construct a shoreline protection system for 15 of the reaches. Reach 16, intended to address landside flood protection, would only be necessary to construct if the shoreline protection system is unable to connect to anticipated future shoreline protection system improvements in South San Francisco and Millbrae/Burlingame. ESA prepared extensive and highly complex noise and vibration, air quality, hydrological, historic resources, and archeological technical studies to support the environmental analysis.

Following certification of the EIR in June 2023, ESA began assisting SFO with agency coordination, environmental compliance planning and strategy, and preparation of the necessary environmental regulatory permit and compliance documents. Implementation of the shoreline protection program will require compliance with the Clean Water Act, federal Endangered Species Act, California Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, Magnuson Stevens Fisheries Conservation Act, and McAtris Petris Act (to name a few) and requires coordination with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife. ESA is also assisting SFO with identifying, planning, and securing off-site compensatory mitigation that will be used to offset impacts on protected aquatic resources and special-status species.

ESA is designing a robust software application to streamline SFO’s monitoring of and compliance with mitigation measures and permit conditions for the project.