Airport Perimeter Dike Project<\/a>, which included both raising the height and reinforcing the strength of the pre-existing 4.5-mile dike along the shoreline of the airport\u2019s South Field, is expected to be completed by September.<\/p>\nThe project looks to provide OAK, the fourth-busiest airport in California, with protection against future flooding and sea level rise brought about by climate change for the next 30 years, according to the Port of Oakland.<\/p>\n
Though the initiative cleared state environmental review requirements in 2015, it has become more important in recent years. A U.S. Geological Survey 2019 study found increased future flood hazards in California through a model that incorporates projected sea level rise with flood events like storms and coastal change.<\/p>\n
The Port of Oakland\u2019s 2019 Sea Level Rise Assessment found that by 2050, a projected 2 feet of sea level rise could cause extreme storms to flood the airport\u2019s entire North Field and vulnerable sections of the South Field.<\/p>\n
\u201cOAK operates at the edge of the San Francisco Bay, and this work ensures the airport can safely serve the region for generations to come,\u201d said Kristi McKenney, executive director at the Port of Oakland, about the dike\u2019s renovations.<\/p>\n
Deferred maintenance<\/p>\n
The Oakland airport dike was created in the 1950s to safeguard the airport\u2019s South Field from its surrounding open Bay waters, readying the airfield for expanded commercial air travel.<\/p>\n
However, due to the effects of erosion and rising sea levels, the Port of Oakland believes the dike requires structural maintenance roughly every 30 years. The dike\u2019s first maintenance came in the 1980s, making the embankment overdue for new infrastructural renovations.<\/p>\n
The project\u2019s first phase, focused on \u201cflood protection and sea level rise adaptation,\u201d raised OAK\u2019s dike a foot above the Federal Emergency Management Agency\u2019s standards for coastal flood infrastructure. The construction took place from 2020 to 2022, costing approximately $30 million.<\/p>\n
The second phase, \u201cseismic resiliency,\u201d was added to the project in 2024 to strengthen the dike against earthquake damage by reinforcing a 5,000-foot section of the seawall with deep soil columns. Construction began in 2025 and is expected to conclude in September of this year, with a final projected cost of $52.7 million.<\/p>\n
The project is part of larger efforts by the Bay Area\u2019s two waterfront airports, OAK and San Francisco International Airport, to sustain their operations amid rising sea levels. Plans are in the works to upgrade pumps and drainage systems at OAK\u2019s North Field, while SFO is working to approve its Shoreline Protection Program, a long-term infrastructural project aimed at protecting the airport\u2019s edges from flooding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An $80 million project to improve Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport\u2019s resiliency to sea level rise is nearing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[14391,5172,389,443,93,4306,644,8076,143,5132,145,144,82523,6827,603,9648,4910,35504],"class_list":["post-371344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oak","tag-airports","tag-alameda-county","tag-climate-change","tag-featured","tag-featured-news","tag-flooding","tag-infrastructure","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-airport","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-oakland-san-francisco-bay-airport","tag-port-of-oakland","tag-san-francisco-international-airport","tag-sea-level-rise","tag-sfo","tag-transportation-infrastructure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}