Rancho Palos Verdes residents who have been impacted by recent land movement will get some financial relief after the City Council this week approved $5 million in relief funds, the majority of which will go to homeowners, with the rest being used for mitigation measures.
The $5 million came from Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn’s office. Of that, $2.8 million is earmarked to help residents with everything from home repairs to temporary housing — with the 280 eligible homeowners getting $10,000 each. Those homeowners are in the Portuguese Bend Community Association, Seaview and Portuguese Bend Beach Club neighborhoods.
The rest, $2.2 million, will help with the increasing cost of landslide mitigation and stabilization efforts, including dewatering wells and road repairs.
“It could be the damage that’s been sustained to that structure, or just the expense and the burdens that residents have had to face because of the utility shut off, having to convert their appliances, having to find alternative means,” City Manager Ara Mihranian said about how residents could use the $10,000.
The $2.2 million will also help residents because it will go toward efforts to stabilize the land, Mihranian said at this week’s council meeting.
“We have sent up emergency flares in this city for the last three years,” said Councilmember David Bradley. “We have talked to every level of government outside of the city of Rancho Palos Verdes and with the exception of Supervisor Hahn pledging back in February to get us $5 million, the county of Los Angeles is the only entity that has helped the city of Rancho Palos Verdes at all.”
The $2.8 million will be a direct assistance to the 280 residents who are “suffering financially and emotionally” and who “have shouldered the financial burden of this landslide entirely on their own, said Hahn representative Jennifer LeMarque.
“The $10,000 may not be enough to cover the cost of what these homeowners are facing,” LeMarque said at Tuesday’s meeting, “but supervisor Hahn thinks it’s important to get them this help while we continue to urge our state and federal partners to make impactful individual assistance available.”
Mayor John Cruikshank joined the chorus that the city and its residents need more state and federal financial aid.
“I’m going to be calling upon our supervisor to join me, to have a press conference, hopefully as early as next week, to call upon our federal state officials to be stepping forward and helping us,” Cruikshank said.
The city has applied for more than $60 million in assistance, including more than $38 million from FEMA, for the city and its residents, but only $1.5 million is anticipated but that is still pending, said Finance Director Vina Ramos.
Following nearly two years of devastation in the landslide area following heavy winter rains — including the dismantling of the historic Wayfarers Chapel, the upheaval of Palos Verdes Drive South, the closure of miles of the city’s hiking trails and the shut-off of natural gas and electricity to dozens of homes — there was some positive news at Tuesday’s meeting.
City geologist said “I’ve got some good news to report for the first time in a long time,” said city geologist Mike Phipps: There has been a 13% deceleration in the velocity of landslide movement over the past month, from Aug. 1 to Sept. 4, with “significant reductions near dewatering wells.”
“We’re seeing amazing results from the dewatering,” Phipps said. “It needs to continue. It needs to be ramped up. I think we’re going to see these results continuing to improve and the slide rapidly decelerating as we move forward.”
Lack of rain in recent months is also a contributing factor to the deceleration, Phipps said.
But while the deceleration is positive news, the land is still moving and the landslide area, which is currently 700 acres, is still expanding, Phipps said, but at a slower rate.
The land is still moving 80 times faster than it was in October 2022.
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The six new deep dewatering wells drilled over the past few weeks are pumping out 7.2 million gallons of water every week and are “located at the toe of the landslide along the shoreline, helping relieve built-up water pressure that is fueling the slide,” according to a city press release.
“The emergency project represents a shift in strategy away from the horizontal hydrauger well project,” a press release said, “a change driven by the discovery of the deeper and faster-moving Altamira Landslide.”
Because of the quick success of these dewatering wells, the City Council approved allocating $6.1 million for continuing emergency work, upward of $4 million for more dewatering wells and an additional $4 million for other “winterization efforts to prepare for the next rainy season,” according to the press release.
“This includes lining canyons and filling fissures and grabens to prevent water from percolating underground and worsening land movement,” according to the press release. “While using a combination of Supervisor Hahn’s relief funds, excess reserves, emergency reserves, and American Rescue Plan Act funds for this investment, the city will continue to pursue all avenues for potential financial assistance from the county, state and federal governments.”
Mihranian, for his part, said he needs to council to approve a minimum of $6.1 million to continue repairing PV Drive South and filling fissures.
“The fissure filling is not really in the canyons, it’s more responding to the public,” he said. “The public calls us and they’re saying, right behind my house there’s a fissure that’s opening up. We go out there and we fill it.”
Director of Public Works Ramzi Awwad said the city is in the process of installing two additional deep dewatering wells that are expected to be “complete and operational” by the end of next week.
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