North Bay residents raise flood of protest against Nicasio Dam expansion

Nicasio residents raise flood of protest to keep Nicasio Dam from growing

The tiny Marin town of Nicasio is up in arms, not because the nearby dam will fail, but because an expansion plan could flood their town if a new plan succeeds.

NICASIO, Calif. - The tiny Marin County town of Nicasio is up in arms, not because the nearby dam will fail, but because an expansion plan could flood their town if it succeeds.

To store more water, the Marin Municipal Water District wants to use a rubber dam to raise the level of Nicasio Reservoir by about 4 and a half feet. Just upstream of the reservoir is the tiny hamlet of Nicasio, with about 250 homes and a population under 1,000.

The folks in Nicasio are on wells and get no water from the reservoir except when it helps cause floods. 

"Thirty-seven square-miles of water shed and when it rains a tremendous amount of water from Hallett Creek, Lucas Valley Creek and Nicasio Creek flow down through our valley," said 40-year resident Amy Morse.

Residents, which is about everybody, who are fighting it, say they are not NIMBYS.

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"It is so far from NIMBYism," said long-time resident Martha Davis.

She says all someone has to do it  look back to the 1980s. 

"They once thought about it before, and they rejected it," Davis said. "They rejected it because it would flood out houses and the historic school in Nicasio."

"They promised to dredge the tributary streams. They stopped doing that at the end of the ‘70s," said resident Thomas Wood, who’s lived in the town for 50 years.

Residents say the silt build is at least 15 feet or more. 

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"[The water district] just doesn't respond to our calls to dredge the creek," Morse said.

KTVU's Tom Vacar stood on a smooth, flat stone Monday night. Residents say, just two years ago, that used to be a sitting bench. Now it's part of the creek bed and it will be gone in another year.

On the Water District’s property, one can see from massive stacks of wood, trunks and branches that came downstream towards the reservoir. It looks very much like a giant beaver dam and there are several of them. As more storms come down, these clumps become dams that flood everything behind them.

Residents have had it. 

"Every year, it already floods half-way up to our house. so we'd like them to take care of the problems they have existing before they even introduce a new problem. Said 38-year resident Kasey Briare, 

Gov. Gavin Newsom says climate change means hotter hots, drier drys, and wetter wets. 

"We're already in flooding conditions right now almost every winter," Davis said. "So it we have more intense storms coming in through and the reservoir is higher, all it's gonna do is intensify the flooding here."

The Marin Municipal Water District issued a public statement saying it's looking into the residents' concerns in preparation of an Environmental Impact Report which is necessary to greenlight raising the dam.