Who We Are
The Oakland Alameda Adaptation Committee (OAAC) is a coalition of shoreline communities and stakeholders working to co-create a coordinated and inclusive future-looking action plan and sub-regional organizational structure to accelerate sea level rise adaptation, protect and restore water quality, recreation and habitat, and promote community resilience.
The Committee is organized around the SFEI San Leandro OLU, which stretches from the Bay Bridge touchdown in the north to Oyster Bay in the south, and includes jurisdictions, agencies and community based organizations that have an interest in the Oakland-Alameda shoreline, as well as regional, state and federal collaborators.
Our shoreline is vulnerable to coastal inundation and rising groundwater and contamination as a result of rising sea levels and liquefaction in earthquakes. These climate induced hazards will put critical infrastructure at risk, damage habitat, and further burden already vulnerable communities. Our goal is to create an inclusive, transformative, and equitable climate-ready community along the Oakland-Alameda shoreline.
Mission Statement
The Committee coordinates flood and adaptation projects to protect and restore water quality, habitat, recreation and adjacent community vitality.
Community engagement will help the Project Partners better understand the high priority needs of community members and will help refine the Committee preliminary objectives, which act as guiding principles that were developed by the Committee in 2022.
Preliminary Objectives – Guiding Principles
- Coordinate efforts
- Help support one another to expedite development of critical adaptation projects
- Offer economies of scale and integrate each agencies’ interests
- Improve overall health of the estuary
- Maximize opportunity
- Maximize funding opportunities
- Share data and information
- Be aware of other projects in the OLU
- Better outcomes for the Bay and communities
- Identify opportunities for restoration and habitat protection and nature-based solutions
- Consider place-based sediment management strategies
- Identify opportunities to improve recreational access to the shoreline and air quality
- Protect residents and vulnerable communities living on or near the shoreline so enhancements to the shoreline benefits those communities and don’t contribute to gentrification and displacement pressures
- Projects should contribute to economic opportunities for local businesses and community members and improve those communities that are impacted by climate change, lack of infrastructure and disinvestment
- Advocate for training and skill development to support underserved communities and investigate institutional barriers to hiring local residents and small local minority-owned businesses
- Be adaptation leaders
- Serve as an example for how to do sub-regional work and advance our collective agendas
5. Formalize OAAC's organizational structure
Project Partners
The Project Partners are the core team overseeing developing of the adaptation projects, and are listed below.
- Steering Committee:
- Caltrans
- City of Alameda
- City of Oakland
- CASA (also Community Partner)
- Confederated Villages of Lisjan Nation/Sogorea Té Land Trust (also Community Partner)
- East Bay Regional Park District
- Greenbelt Alliance (also Community Partner)
- Hood Planning Group (also Community Partner)
- Port of Oakland
- San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board
- West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project
- Community Partners:
- CASA
- Confederated Villages of Lisjan Nation/Sogorea Té Land Trust
- Greenbelt Alliance
- Hood Planning Group
- Ninth Root
- REAP Climate Center with Climate Fellows
- Scientific Advisor: San Francisco Estuary Institute
- Consultant Team:
- CMG Landscape Architecture
- Pathways Climate Institute
- Moffatt & Nichol
- NHA Advisors
- Schaaf & Wheeler Consulting Civil Engineers
- ESA
- Earth Mechanics, Inc.