Excerpt:

Treasure Island was built in the 1930s atop a broad underwater shoal by dumping tons and tons more sand onto the area - sand that was dredged from other parts of the bay and carried to the rapidly growing island by barge, or pumped there through hydraulic pipelines.

Now, the developers seeking to build a high-rise neighborhood in a location susceptible to earthquakes, tsunamis and sea-level rise have drawn up an engineering plan that in essence creates a new island atop the sandy fill.

As risky as this might sound, engineers say the approach being proposed draws on stabilization methods that are commonly used to solidify landfills around the world.