This story aired in the July 17, 2025 episode of Crosscurrents.
Click the button above to listen.
Today, we have part three in a seven part series looking at sea level rise in California. From the San Diego / Tijuana Border all the way up to Humboldt Bay, we’re visiting some of the people and places that are dealing with flooding, coastal erosion, and pollution… all made worse by rising tides.
KALW’s Emergency and Disaster Preparedness reporter Wren Farrell is the lead producer on this series. He spoke with KALW's Crosscurrents host Hana Baba about the continuing series.
HANA BABA: Hi Wren.
WREN FARRELL: Hi Hana.
HANA: Ok, so we’re on part three. For those who might have missed earlier episodes, what have we heard so far?
WREN: We’ve heard two stories about flooding so far. One was in Napa County, where a small community is struggling to agree about how to fix an aging levee. The second was in Humboldt County, where a restaurant owner has somehow managed to turn regular flooding at his restaurant into a business opportunity.
HANA: And so what’re we listening to today?
WREN: Today, we have another story about a town where flooding is a regular occurrence. This time we’re going down to Pescadero, a small farming town about two miles east of highway 1 on the coast.
HANA: How is a place two miles east of the ocean being impacted by sea level rise?
WREN: Pescadero has several creeks running through it. Bigger rainstorms, unmanaged debris, and erosion are already causing a lot of flooding. And as sea levels rise, the flooding is getting even worse.
HANA: And what makes this story different from the other ones we’ve heard so far?
WREN LEDE:
Residents of the agricultural town of Pescadero in San Mateo County have been dealing with flooding for decades.
[Montage News Clips]
Members of the large immigrant and farmworker community say that flooding highlights a class divide, especially between renters and private landlords. In collaboration with Coastside News, Sebastian Miño-Bucheli is going to take a closer look at people who have had to deal with flooding in their homes for years, and the people who are trying to address this problem in a more equitable way.
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Story Transcript:
Sound of walking in Pescadero with Irma Rodriguez Mitton
REPORTER: I’m in Pescadero, getting a tour from Irma Rodriguez Mitton. She’s the executive director of Arriba South Coast. It’s a non-profit that looks for community responses to climate change.
Rodriguez Mitton is taking me to spots in town that are known to flood after a big rain. The first place she takes me is Stage Road. It's the main street in this town of around 600 residents and we come across a house that’s currently under construction.
RODRIGUEZ MITTON: This is one of the most historic homes in Pescadero. This home is being raised three feet so it’s above the floodplain.
REPORTER: The town of Pescadero was built on a flood plain. Rainwater runs down the Santa Cruz mountains and drains into a number of creeks that lead to a marsh and eventually the ocean. This all makes the Pescadero-Butano [[beaut-NO]] watershed. Sometimes flooding happens when one of the creeks is clogged or during high tides when there’s too much water coming in.This has been affecting businesses and residents here for decades. But Rodriguez Mitton says not everyone can just raise their home three feet.
RODRIGUEZ MITTON: If you’re a property owner with means and you can raise your home. That’s great. That’s one home raised out of the flood plain. But the community isn’t raised out of the flood plain.
REPORTER: That’s the issue Rodriguez Mitton is trying to tackle.
I got a chance to meet a resident who lives on Pescadero Creek Road and has made the news for being open about the flooding issues in town.
MARIA JUANA ZAVALA RIZO: Mi nombre es Maria Juana Zavala Rizo y soy agricultora de flores ahorita en este momento. // My name is Maria Juana Zavala Rizo. I'm a flower farmer at the moment.
REPORTER: She said she’s a farmer that works with flowers. I met Zavala back in 2023 after she attended a Board of Supervisors meeting with the advocacy group, Del Campo Al Cambio, from Fields to Change. She talked to the Supervisors about problems going on in the South Coast.
ZAVALA: Esta casa está ubicada al lado del río de Pescador, el agua del río ha entrado a mi casa cada temporada de lluvia durante 28 años. // This house is located next to the Pescadero river..water of the river…has entered my home during the rainy season for the past 28 years.
REPORTER: Fighting tears, she says the home she’s lived in for 28 years is located by the river and has flooded during the rainy season.
ZAVALA: En enero pasado, el agua estaba tan alta que tuve que usar botas de lluvia para displacer en la cocina. Preparo la cena con mis botas de lluvia. // Last January, the water was so high that I had to use rain boots to walk around in my kitchen. I prepared dinner with my boots.
REPORTER: Two years ago in January, the water was so high, she had to walk around in her kitchen wearing rain boots just to be able to make dinner.
Since that meeting, her landlord has installed cinder block walls in the lower parts of the home to keep the water out during rainy seasons. Her house doesn’t flood anymore.
In her living room, Zavala shows me photos from one of those really bad rainstorms.
Sound of a conversation between Zavala and meZAVALA: Mira la banqueta.. Puedes ver la banqueta de mi casa. Aquí a frente. // Look at the sidewalk, can you see the sidewalk of my house? Here in front.
REPORTER (to Zavala): Cuantos pies era de agua? Eso eran dos pies de agua? // How many feet did the water rise? Was it two feet?
ZAVALA: No pues, te salías para fuera y te llega a la rodilla. // Well, no. If you went outside, the water would go up to your knees.
REPORTER: Zavala tells me that the flood was so bad, her front yard was underwater. The water reached to her knees.
Sound of Zavala laughing
She laughs a little looking at the photos now, but Zavala tells me that, after her house flooded 5 times in one year, she suffered from a long depression.
What really hurt was how the floods drowned her prized garden.
ZAVALA: Yo mirada tan hermoso mi patio de plantas que yo había plantado. Después que se inundó, sentí como un desaliento. Como desánimo. Aye porque planto? // I looked at my garden and how beautiful it looked with the plants I planted. After the flood, I felt discouraged. Why would I plant?
REPORTER: She says, after the floods wrecked her garden, she felt discouraged. Why plant more flowers if they would just be taken by the river in the next flood?
And solutions – like putting cement walls around flooding areas – that can be difficult for renters like Zavala and her family, who can’t make upgrades without landlord approval.
Irma Rodriguez Mitton and I drive further west out Pescadero Creek Road, which connects the town to Highway 1 on the coast. She says some of the homes here get flooded almost every time the water in the creek is high.
RODRIGUEZ MITTON: So the combination of a rain storm with high water levels in the creek plus hightide, just sends it right over the banks into their house.
REPORTER: We arrive at another point on Pescadero Creek Road that floods a lot. The source at this spot is Butano Creek.
RODRIGUEZ MITTON: This is where Butano creek flows into Pescadero Marsh. And on the other side, Pescadero creek is coming into Pescadero, also in the marsh.
REPORTER: Sometimes the flooding is so bad on the road that it cuts off direct access to the town for days. Even the town’s fire station gets flooded, making it harder to respond to emergencies in Pescadero.
RODRIGUEZ MITTON: And then you can see, this is the low point of the road. So it would fill up this field and then you can see this where the creek would essentially go.
REPORTER: OneShoreLine is a county-wide agency working to address sea level rise, flooding, and coastal erosion. It recently installed a monitoring system in Pescadero to help residents figure out just how flooded the road is and if it’s too dangerous to drive.
RODRIGUEZ MITTON: Yeah so this is the new monitoring that OneShoreLine was able to put in for us. The roadway flashes when it does detect water on the road.
REPORTER: Before OneShoreLine intervened, the only way residents could guess if the road was safe enough to cross was by looking at an old marker, a metal sign with a white line painted on it.
RODRIGUEZ MITTON: I got a little car, if I can still see the white lines that mark the road I might be safe. If I can't see the white lines, I probably shouldn’t go through it.
REPORTER: As we look at Butano Creek, I notice a lot of wood and other debris. I ask Rodriguez Mitton: whose responsibility is it to clean the creek up?
RODRIGUEZ MITTON: That’s a really good question.. Another good question for RCD.
REPORTER: The RCD or the Resource Conservation District. Every county in the state has a similar agency. Executive Director Kellyx Nelson says with a problem as complex as flooding in Pescadero, there have to be multiple solutions.
NELSON: You know that expression, it takes a village, I like to say it takes a watershed.
REPORTER: She says, the RCD works with property owners, the state and the county. Which all have different needs.
On state property, the RCD can tackle floods by dredging: deepening creeks to remove excessive sediment. On county property, she says, the RCD does work on roadways and bridges. As for the private land owners that live along the creek?
NELSON: The landowners partnered with us and let us do work on their property. They’ve been partnering with floodplain restoration, sediment management and all of this other stuff.
REPORTER: She says, in addition to the current flooding problems, the RCD is planning for future uncertainties–like heavy storms, historic drought, and sea level rise.
NELSON: Ocean water is coming up further up inland which forms its own dam for the fresh water from the rain that’s coming down in the mountains. So that fresh water backs up into town.
REPORTER: But a lot of these solutions have to be coordinated. Because if just one person or entity does it on their own…
NELSON: It will ultimately fail, probably catastrophically, and it may make matters worse for their neighbor…
REPORTER: Nelson says, the RCD is trying to get homeowners along Pescadero Creek Road to agree to a kind of radical solution: if each one gives up a little bit of their property and allows the RCD to plant willows and add rock, that may just stabilize the shore, slow down the rapid water, and reduce erosion.
She says that the landowners partnership matters because some backyards have been lost in a storm and now they resemble cliffs.
NELSON: There’s only a limited amount of places that you can go before these houses start falling in.
REPORTER: Maybe, in the future, a solution like this could help renter Maria Zavala, who lives by the creek.
ZAVALA: Mira esta casa estaba hasta ya. Todo este terreno se lo comió el río. // Look this home's backyard used to extend over there. The land has eroded into the river.
REPORTER: Just steps out of the back of the house, Zavala shows me the property used to be a few yards deeper but the land has eroded into the creek. She shows me her garden where she has about 100 different types of flowers and herbs. Her lavender, birds of paradise, mint, roses. It’s all thriving in the spring weather.
ZAVALA: Como puedes ver, ahorita ya puedo ver mi jardín, ya este año no hizo destrozos ni el año pasado. // If you can see, right now I can see my garden. This year and last there was no damage done to the garden.
REPORTER: Zavala tells me that last year and this year, there wasn’t any damage done to her garden..
While the garden is beautiful, I can’t help but hear just how strong the water in the creek is flowing. A constant reminder that… until something changes. Flooding is still a threat.
