San Lorenzo River Lagoon Culvert Project

The city of Santa Cruz, California has experienced issues related to the San Lorenzo River Lagoon for several years. Where the freshwater river meets the ocean, a buildup of sand often causes the lagoon levels to rise. Impacts include flooding to the area, significant maintenance costs to perform controlled breaching, and uncontrolled breaching with risk to public safety. Syblon Reid partnered with the owner to implement an innovative approach to solving this ongoing issue. The project aims to control the lagoon water surface elevation by excavating and installing piping that will pump water from the lagoon out into the ocean without risk to the lagoon wildlife. Not only was the design innovative, Syblon Reid acted with flexibility to work around the drastically fluctuating lagoon levels.