Pictures

The water, the gate, and the gullies — photographed.

Photographs of this flooding exist: the water at Drake and Donahue, the gate at the pond, the gullies above Golden Gate Village. They are scattered through agency reports that run to hundreds of pages. Here they are, each cited to its document, figure number and page, with a link to the original.

All but the four photographs at the end are from public agency documents, which is why they can be shown here; those four are our own work, and say so. Nothing has been altered beyond cropping and resizing. What is left out, and why, is explained at the foot of the page.

Marin City Stormwater Plan

Schaaf & Wheeler, for the Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District · October 2025

California public record · the document ↗

A wide sheet of brown floodwater covering the road at the Drake Avenue and Donahue Street intersection, with two cars driving through it, trees and a building on the left and a Highway 101 sign on the right. — **Figure 1-4:** February 2019 Flooding at Drake and Donahue Intersection
Marin City Stormwater Plan, p. 4. Schaaf & Wheeler, for the Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, October 2025.
The corner this whole site is about, under water, with cars driving through it. Everything the model says about Drake and Donahue is an attempt to describe this photograph.

Muddy floodwater pouring over a concrete retaining wall in heavy rain while workers in high-visibility gear place sandbags along the top and shovel at the base, with an apartment block behind. — **Figure 1-6:** October 2021 Storm Event Near Cole Street Apartments
Marin City Stormwater Plan, p. 6. Schaaf & Wheeler, for the Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, October 2025. Photograph credited in the document to **Chinaka Green**.
Brown water pouring over a wall while crews sandbag it. The brown is most likely sediment: the material the People's Plan traced to the gullies above the neighborhood, and the material that silts the pond.

The Marin City Pond seen across open water in daylight, with a small red box marking the sluice gate structure on the far bank and the Highway 101 embankment behind. — **Figure 2-4:** Sluice Gate on Marin City Pond
Marin City Stormwater Plan, p. 32. Schaaf & Wheeler, for the Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, October 2025.
The gate. Everything on this site turns on whether this is open or shut, and the county's own photograph is the only published picture of it this project has found.

An aerial view of the Richardson Bay shoreline with floating homes along a dock, a red box marking the channel where the culvert discharges, and the highway running across the bottom. — **Figure 1-5:** Erosion Issue at Culvert Outfall from Marin City Pond
Marin City Stormwater Plan, p. 5. Schaaf & Wheeler, for the Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, October 2025.
Drawn over aerial imagery whose own license this project has not traced.
The far end of the culvert (the pipe that carries the pond out under the highway), where it empties beside the floating homes. The plan says the water rushing out at low tide digs away the channel bottom here; engineers call that scour.

A hillside trail with a deep erosion gully cut down its center, exposed soil either side and green grass around it. — **Figure 7-12:** Erosion on Hillside Trails and Fire Roads
Marin City Stormwater Plan, p. 84. Schaaf & Wheeler, for the Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, October 2025.
The top of the watershed, cut into by its own runoff. This is where the sediment starts, and it is the one recurring idea across all the studies with no funded project behind it.

A map of Marin City covered in colored symbols marking drainage issues, with a legend distinguishing points from the 2017 drainage study, field observations, and issues identified by the community at meetings. — **Figure 1-9:** Marin City Issue Map From Community Input
Marin City Stormwater Plan, p. 9. Schaaf & Wheeler, for the Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, October 2025.
Residents' own account of where the problems are, mapped. Each symbol is somewhere somebody said something goes wrong. It is the most under-used picture in any of these documents.

A map of the Marin City watershed with proposed drainage improvements drawn on it in green and blue, ringed by inset photographs of trash racks, eroded hillsides and blocked inlets connected to their locations. — **Figure 11-4:** Marin City Watershed Recommended Projects
Marin City Stormwater Plan, p. 119. Schaaf & Wheeler, for the Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, October 2025.
Drawn over aerial imagery whose own license this project has not traced.
The county's whole recommendation on one sheet, upper watershed and lower, with photographs of each problem attached to its location.

Marin City Flood Risk Management Study, Section 205 (CAP)

US Army Corps of Engineers, San Francisco District · 2025

US federal government work, not subject to copyright · the document ↗

Traffic backed up on a wet highway beside standing floodwater, with traffic cones and a flooded shoulder in the foreground. — **Project sheet photograph:** Flooding on the highway at the Marin City interchange
Marin City Flood Risk Management Study, Section 205 (CAP), p. 1. US Army Corps of Engineers, San Francisco District, 2025.
Caltrans counts three closures of the Marin City entrance since October 2014, and the Army Corps records storms in 2017 and 2021 that left residents unable to get in or out. Donahue Street is the only route.

A topographic location map of Marin City with an inset showing its position on San Francisco Bay relative to Vallejo, Concord, San Francisco and San Mateo. — **Project location map:** Marin City Flood Risk Management Study project location
Marin City Flood Risk Management Study, Section 205 (CAP), p. 1. US Army Corps of Engineers, San Francisco District, 2025.
The study area for the $15 million federal study. Its local partner (the Army Corps calls this the non-federal sponsor) is the Marin City Community Services District, Marin City's own elected board.

Marin City Second Culvert Project, Draft Initial Study / Mitigated Negative Declaration

Caltrans District 4 · 2025

California public record, circulated for public review under CEQA · the document ↗

A wide empty parking lot with a low hedge along the far side, the wooded Highway 101 embankment beyond it and hills on the horizon. — **Figure 2-1:** Existing View from Marin Gateway Shopping Center Parking Lot
Marin City Second Culvert Project, Draft Initial Study / Mitigated Negative Declaration, p. 2-40. Caltrans District 4, 2025.
Acres of paved parking lot between Drake and Donahue and the pond, looking toward the embankment. On a dry day.

The Marin City Pond seen from the sidewalk, still water with marsh vegetation around its edge and the Highway 101 embankment and hills behind. — **Figure 2-2:** Existing View from Sidewalk Near 203 Donahue Street
Marin City Second Culvert Project, Draft Initial Study / Mitigated Negative Declaration, p. 2-40. Caltrans District 4, 2025.
The pond, from the street. Compare it with the Street View panels on the model page and with the section on why it floods — this is the floor of the bowl.

An aerial map of the Highway 101 crossing at Donahue Street, with the new culvert alignment, the rerouted Phillips Drive pipe and the construction staging areas marked in colored lines and hatching. — **Figure 1-3A:** Project Components (Map 1 of 2)
Marin City Second Culvert Project, Draft Initial Study / Mitigated Negative Declaration, p. 1-10. Caltrans District 4, 2025.
Drawn over aerial imagery whose own license this project has not traced.
The bypass, drawn. The Phillips Drive drain is rerouted away from the pond's culvert into a new concrete box of its own under the highway — which is why this project is not a second way out for the pond.

Marin City Drainage Study

Wood Rodgers, for Marin County Flood Control Zone No. 3 · January 22, 2018

California public record · the document ↗

An aerial map of a hillside neighborhood with drainage pipes overlaid in orange and white, and a blue arrow labeled Mud Flow marking where sediment runs down between the houses. — **Figure 6:** Local Flooding Location 1
Marin City Drainage Study, p. 13. Wood Rodgers, for Marin County Flood Control Zone No. 3, January 22, 2018.
Drawn over aerial imagery whose own license this project has not traced.
One of seven locations the 2018 study mapped in detail, with the mud flow marked. Seven years before the stormwater plan, at the same places.

A line chart across four days in December 2015 showing the tide rising and falling against the water level in the Marin City Pond, with red crosses and circles marking the times the sluice gate was closed and opened. — **Figure 16:** Gate Operations December 2015
Marin City Drainage Study, p. 27. Wood Rodgers, for Marin County Flood Control Zone No. 3, January 22, 2018.
Four days of the real gate being opened and shut by hand, against the tide and the level in the pond. This is the closest thing to observed data on the mechanism the whole site describes, and it is from 2015.

An aerial map showing a green line running to the Highway 101 culvert with a red point marked Inlet Flap Gate, and a blue dashed line continuing across the highway to the bay. — **Figure 41:** Element LL1
Marin City Drainage Study, p. 68. Wood Rodgers, for Marin County Flood Control Zone No. 3, January 22, 2018.
Drawn over aerial imagery whose own license this project has not traced.
One of the 2018 study's numbered fixes: a flap gate on the mouth of the pipe — a gate that shuts by itself when the tide pushes back, instead of by hand. Drawn in 2018; Caltrans' new culvert is designed with a duckbill check valve, the same idea.

An aerial map with the detention basin outlined in red hatching, labeled Desilt Basin to Elevation 0.7 feet, and a blue line running to the lowered culvert inlet at the highway. — **Figure 42:** Element LL2
Marin City Drainage Study, p. 69. Wood Rodgers, for Marin County Flood Control Zone No. 3, January 22, 2018.
Drawn over aerial imagery whose own license this project has not traced.
Digging the silt out of the pond and lowering the mouth of the pipe back to the 0.7 ft it was built at. Drawn in 2018; residents named the silt the same year; the county documented it in 2025; federal money is now reported as going to it.

An aerial map of the lower watershed with the desilted basin hatched in red, and red and blue lines marking a bypass pipe, flap gates, a junction box and an outlet structure across the Highway 101 embankment. — **Figure 50:** Alternative 1
Marin City Drainage Study, p. 78. Wood Rodgers, for Marin County Flood Control Zone No. 3, January 22, 2018.
Drawn over aerial imagery whose own license this project has not traced.
The most effective of the four whole-system packages priced in 2018: about $7.6 million, cutting the area flooded in what engineers call a 10-year storm (their yardstick for a big storm; see the glossary) from 16.4 acres to 6.4. Most of what is now planned is inside this drawing.

Photographs by the project team

The pond, the freeway and the bay · September 5, 2026

The project's own pictures, which is why they can be shown here

The Marin City Pond on a dry, sunny day: a broad sheet of still water with reeds at its edges, dry grass along the near bank, and houses among trees on the hillside behind it. — The pond, from its fence line: the low ground the whole bowl drains to, with the hillside behind it. The county calls it a detention basin, the wetland plan calls it a restoration site, and on a dry day it is this.
Photograph: the project team, September 5, 2026. The project team took these pictures, holds them, and publishes them here.

A great blue heron standing on a low strip of green plants at the edge of the pond, its reflection below it in still blue water. — A great blue heron at the edge of the pond. The county's own plan calls the pond “a three-acre tidal marsh habitat”; on a still day, this is what that means.
Photograph: the project team, September 5, 2026. The project team took these pictures, holds them, and publishes them here.

From a grassy hillside, looking down over the pond, the lanes of Highway 101 on their bank, and Richardson Bay beyond with floating homes moored along their docks; Sausalito's hills and a marina in the distance under a streaked blue sky. — The whole mechanism in one frame, from the hillside: the pond at the bottom of the bowl (right of center, below the tree), Highway 101 on its bank, and the floating homes on Richardson Bay across it. Everything the home page tracker draws is in this picture.
Photograph: the project team, September 5, 2026. The project team took these pictures, holds them, and publishes them here.

A large black pipe running along the ground beside a chain-link fence at the edge of the pond, with a strip of dry grass, the lanes of Highway 101 and its concrete barrier, and floating homes across the bay beyond. — A black pipe along the fence at the pond's edge, with Highway 101 behind it and the floating homes across the bay; the project team describes it as the county's temporary pumping at the pond. A portable pump went in at Donahue Street in 2024 as an interim measure, and the permanent station is the first project in the county's 2025 plan. The picture cannot say which of those this pipe belongs to.
Photograph: the project team, September 5, 2026. The project team took these pictures, holds them, and publishes them here.

What the pictures show that the text does not

Three of these are worth more than a chapter

The October 2021 photograph. Brown water pouring over a wall while crews sandbag it. The color is what matters: that is most likely sediment coming off the hillside, the same material the county records as having silted the pond by about two feet. In 2018 the People's Plan traced it to the gullies above the neighborhood and said pipe work at the bottom would only hold until the hillside refilled it. This photograph is what that sentence looks like.

Gate Operations, December 2015. Four days of the real being opened and shut by hand, plotted against the tide and the level in the pond: the closest thing there is to observed data on the mechanism this whole site describes. It is from 2015, it sits inside a 317-page engineering study, and we have not seen it cited anywhere else.

The community issue map. Residents' own account of where things go wrong, mapped symbol by symbol. It is in the county's 2025 plan and it is the most under-used picture in any of these documents.

About these pictures

If a caption here is wrong, it is wrong about somebody's work. Figure numbers, captions and page numbers were read off the documents, not reconstructed, and the page numbers are the ones printed on the page, not the PDF's own count. Every document is linked from The studies, so you can check. If you find an error, say so on the bulletin board; that is worth more than a correction to any model.
Why these can be shown here, and what is missing. Everything but the four photographs at the end comes from public agency documents: three California public records and one work of the US federal government, which is not subject to copyright. California agencies generally cannot claim copyright in public records, and and documents are published precisely so the public can read and comment on them. We have deliberately left out the People's Plan, whose authors are a private team and whose drawings are their own work, and the Audubon articles, which are copyrighted reporting with third-party photo licenses; both are linked from the studies instead. A public record is a different kind of thing from somebody's design work, and we do not get to blur that line just because the pictures would be useful.