The land underneath Palos Verdes Drive South in Rancho Palos Verdes is moving daily and the two-lane road will likely need to be closed temporarily for repairs, officials said this week.
That development is the latest in a series of struggles on the Palos Verdes Peninsula as cities there try to solve the issue of land movement.
During this week’s RPV City Council meeting, officials strategized about the potential road closure and about putting two horizontal drains — or hydraugers — within the landslide complex to slow the movement. The City Council this week also extended its local emergency ordinance.
Heavy rains that began in October 2022 and continued into this year is considered the cause of the land movement, accoring to city geologist Mike Phipps.
About 675 acres of land, over a square mile, is “moving toward the ocean,” Phipps said. That’s causing damage to some homes, as well as to the historic Wayfarers Chapel,which was forced to shutter earlier this year. The land movement has also wreaked havoc on the city’s main thoroughfare, Palos Verdes Drive South, where approximately 15,000 cars travel daily along the coast of the city.
The city is seeing some areas of PV Drive South move close to a half an inch per day, which, Phipps said, is an “unprecedented rate of movement.”
“It’s moving quicker than it ever has,” Phipps said, “but I don’t see the potential for catastrophic failure.”
An area of the two-lane winding southern roadway that locals call the “ski jump” needs a “significant regrade,” said Public Works Director Ramzi Awwad.
“This will be one of the more significant, if not the most significant, regrading operations (to) PV Drive South in recent memory,” Awwad said at the Tuesday, March 19, council meeting. “But I believe it’s necessary to continue to keep PV Drive South open. We’re very concerned about the condition of PV Drive South and working to keep it open as long as possible.”
Heavy vehicle restrictions will continue on the road, Awwad said, while the city plans to add more signage to “reinforce warnings throughout the area.”
“We may be prohibiting bicyclists and motorcyclists in the near future,” Awwad said.
In case of a closure, the city will explore putting a detour route in place. Details of a construction plan will be brought back at the April 2 City Council meeting, Awwad said.
Scientists, meanwhile, hope the approval of two emergency hydraugers would help alleviate some of the underground water buildup.
The Portuguese Bend Landslide Complex covers 240 acres and includes the smaller landslide areas of Portuguese Bend, Abalone Cove, Beach Club and Klondike Canyon.
While there has been slow land movement for decades, heavy rain the past two winters has caused greater shifting.
There has been acceleration in the landslide from October 2023 to January of this year after the second wettest winter in recorded history since 1997-98, Phipps said. More than 11 inches of rain followed in February.
In the Portuguese Bend Reserve area, land has moved 2.5 to three feet in the past couple of months, while Abalone Cove Reserve has seen 1.5 to 3.5 feet of movement, Phipps said.
This has had a direct impact on eight miles of popular hiking trails,which have closed because of the land movement.
“We no longer have trail access down to Sacred Cove in the Abalone Cove Reserve because those beach access trails have sustained so much damage from the land movement,” said Katie Lozano, an administrative analyst for the city’s Department of Recreation, Parks and Open Space.
There has been a lot of damage to the utility infrastructure in the landslide areas, as well as to fire and maintenance roads, some of which some are impassable, Lozano said.
Southern California Edison is currently working to remov 40 poles that have been de-energized within the Portuguese Bend Reserve, Lozano said. Cal Water pipes have also been damaged and largely deactivated, she added, but some are “still active and experiencing leaks.”
Cal Water is currently upgrading and moving water lines above ground, Awwad said.
The RPV City Council, for its part, extended its local state of emergency this week through May 18. The emergency was initially approved in October.
Last month, the city reached out to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office to request a California state of emergency. In late February, according to a city staff report, the city was notified that the request was covered under the Feb. 4, state of emergency Newsom issued for eight counties, including Los Angeles County.
The city is also seeking federal disaster funds through FEMA, which could include “individual assistance,” that “supports directly impacted households and businesses through various means, including grants for temporary housing and emergency home repairs,” according to city staff report.
FEMA could also provide “public assistance money, which “focuses on repairing or replacing damaged public facilities and infrastructure, the staff report said, with FEMA covering at least 75% of eligible costs and the remaining portion shared by state and local governments.”
City staffers will come back to the April 2 council meeting to seek an $8 million appropriation to fund the hydraugers while RPV seeks additional funding sources.
Work on installing the hydraugers could begin as early as the end of May, City Manager Ara Mihranian said at the meeting.
Neven Matasovic, director of Geotechnical Engineering at Geo-Logic Associates, said at Tuesday’s meeting that RPV is facing the biggest and fastest-moving landslide in the United States.
It’s also likely the most studied in the country, Matasovic said.
“I don’t think we can stop it,” Matasovic said.
But, Matasovic added, it could be slowed down.
The emergency installation of the hydraugers will help, Matasovic said, though more will need to be done to reduce the land movement back to levels seen in the past.
The City Council on Tuesday also approved looking into helping the Abalone Cove Landslide Abatement District and the Klondike Canyon Landslide Abatement District, which are “Geologic Hazard Abatement Districts” that work independently from the city, with financial assistance and “in-kind services” like geology, engineering and project management.
There was also discussion by the council to hold a town hall meeting about land movement at an undetermined date.