Santa Barbara staff roll out draft wastewater and water systems climate adaptation plan, urge phased action on pressurization and shoreline protections

Santa Barbara City staff presented a draft wastewater and water systems climate adaptation plan to the Planning Commission on Jan. 15, 2026, saying the document prioritizes risks to the city’s wastewater system and lays out near-, mid- and long-term measures to protect treatment operations and public health.

Melissa Hetrick, adaptation and resilience manager in the city’s Sustainability and Resilience Department, told the commission that the plan — released for public comment Dec. 9 — was developed by an interdepartmental team and consultants and that the city will accept comments through Feb. 10. “I am here because we released publicly in December, for public comment, a draft wastewater and water systems climate adaptation plan,” Hetrick said.

The plan’s risk assessment singled out the wastewater system as the highest near-term priority because flooding and salty intrusion can overwhelm collection systems and, at higher salinity levels, kill the biological treatment processes at the El Estero Water Resource Center. Hetrick described updated federal and state projections (base year 2000) showing about 0.8 feet of sea level rise by 2050, 2.5 feet by 2075 and roughly 5 feet by 2100, and said the city has observed about 3–4 inches of sea level rise so far.

Why it matters: staff described two failure modes that pose operational and public‑health risks — stormwater entering the sewer network during intense storms (inflow and infiltration), and seawater or saline groundwater entering collection pipes and killing treatment bacteria, which can take weeks to…