An ambitious plan to tame the flood-prone San Francisquito Creek by widening a downstream channel and lowering a marshlands levee Thursday night won the unanimous support of the regional agency charged with protecting against a major flood.

Ironically, it was virtually an identical plan to one proposed more than 50 years ago.

The Board of Directors of the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority -- which includes council members from Palo Alto, Menlo Park and East Palo Alto and water officials from San Mateo and Santa Clara counties -- voted unanimously to approve a "downstream strategy" for reducing the
threat of floods.

The plan calls for widening the channel east of U.S. Highway 101 and lowering a levee near the Faber Tract baylands property, located in San Mateo County but owned by the City of Palo Alto. The project would increase downstream channel capacity to increase upstream flow rates west of 101 and allow water to spill onto marshland north of the Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course.

The board abandoned another option -- building a diagonal bypass channel through the golf course to divert water away from vulnerable East Palo Alto homes and streamline flow. The alternative was dropped after an analysis found it to cost about six times as much as widening the existing channel.

Officials and residents of East Palo Alto, Palo Alto and Menlo Park have long called for flood-control improvements along the creek. Some warned that a lack of action could lead to a "mini-New Orleans" disaster in East Palo Alto, where hundreds of homes are subject to deep flooding.

In 1998, overflow from the creek caused nearly $50 million in damage to Palo Alto homes.

Thursday night's vote represents a major breakthrough for the flood-control agency, which came into existence after the 1998 flood. The JPA has been discussing and debating flood-control options for the past decade, while seeking the expedite federal action. The agency supplanted several decades of inter-city blame-trading and arguing over how to reduce the creek's flood threat.

The Palo Alto City Council last Monday night voted unanimously to support the downstream plan.

The plan does not include removing or rebuilding the Pope-Chaucer Street bridge, which has been a flow-restrictor for many decades and a point of contention and demands from 1998 flood victims and Palo Alto residents. The channel widening and levee change have been deemed a first-things-first priority, with the bridge to be addressed later.

The JPA board action also marks the culmination of a major policy shift -- from lobbying federal officials to expedite creek improvements to "doing it ourselves" locally in a phased manner.

Talks of removing or modifying the levee downstream have been bouncing around Palo Alto since the 1950s, according to Joe Teresi, a senior engineer at the city's Public Works Department who has been working with the creek authority on creek issues.

Teresi said he found minutes from an April 14, 1958, City Council meeting that refer to a residents' petition requesting that in the event of an emergency the city break the levee to allow water to flow onto the Palo Alto Airport and golf course areas.

According to the minutes, then City Manager Jerry Kiethley instead singled out the city-owned Faber Faber Tract marshland north of the creek channel as the most appropriate site for sn overflow basin. An engineer was asked to study the feasibility of modifying the levee. The project ultimately fizzled away, only to receive new life Thursday night.

"It's not the end of a two-month process, or the end of a five-month process," Len Materman, executive director of the creek authority, said of the JPA board's action.

"It's decades of discussions."

Earlier this year, the authority hired the San Francisco-based engineering firm Philip Williams and Associates to analyze impacts of widening the channel and building a detention basin upstream, primarily on Stanford University land west of Junipero Serra Boulevard.

An analysis released last month concluded that a widened channel would be able to convey runoff during a "100-year flood" -- the standard the creek authority is applying to the food-control project, which actually means a flood with a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year.

The downstream project is expected to cost about $8 million, much of which would be funded by the Santa Clara Valley Water District. Other agencies, including the San Mateo County Flood Control District and the three member cities of the JPA, will also be asked to contribute.

The five-member JPA board also voted unanimously Thursday night to send out a request for qualifications -- the first step in hiring a firm for the design and environmental work on the downstream project. Materman said he expects to have a contract in place by October.

Meanwhile, the JPA will continue to analyze its upstream alternatives. The board agreed to continue its discussions with Stanford -- which owns large swaths of upstream land -- about building a detention basin that would delay some storm water from flowing downstream toward Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park until the peak runoff has passed.

An analysis by Philip Williams and Associates found that an upstream detention basin would reduce water flow by 7 to 14 percent, depending on the site used.

But Stanford has repeatedly stated that more studies are needed before the university could support any upstream project. This week, Stanford Vice-President Robert C. Reidy sent a letter to the JPA board expressing concern about the costs and environmental impacts of proposed upstream projects.

"It would not be a prudent use of public monies to make the substantial financial investment in design and environmental review phases at this time when there are so many significant issues, uncertainties and unanswered questions," Reidy stated.

But East Palo Alto Mayor Ruben Abrica, who is on the JPA board, said it's time for Stanford to step up and declare where it stands on the issue.

Stanford "has to take an ethical responsibility sooner rather than later" to make a decision on whether it wants to help the creek authority in its effort to reduce the flood threat, he said.

At the JPA meeting, Jean McCown, Stanford's director of community relations, lauded the agency's decision to pursue a downstream option in the near term. She said Stanford would work with the JPA on upstream issues and to obtain answers to its questions.

"We think, in fairness, any property owner who is being asked to consider using their land legitimately is entitled to have these questions addressed before they're asked to put their land to this use," McCown said.

McCown also told the Weekly that Stanford's push for more analysis has nothing to do with "moral" issues, but has everything to do with making sure the upstream project JPA selects makes sense. Stanford, she said,"is trying honestly to get some very critical analysis done."

Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been conducting its own multi-year study on how to protect the communities from the feared 100-year storm. The plan stalled in recent years because of federal budget shortages and funds being siphoned off for other purposes.

Materman said the Corps now expects to complete the study and receive the funding to implement its plan no earlier than 2017 -- a sluggish timeframe that has frustrated local officials for many years.