City and Residents Agree Asilomar Is Safety Concern

For once, it sounded like the City of Los Angeles and Asilomar bluffs residents were saying the same thing at last Thursday’s Community Council meeting. But they were miles apart on how to solve the problem, which is the storm-damaged hillside about a quarter of a mile northwest of PCH and Temescal Canyon Road. While citizens insisted that the hillside requires immediate attention and considerable repair work, two engineering geologists agreed but explained that they can only perform limited, surface repairs at this time. The Asilomar landslide was first documented in 1957-1958, according to Craig Kunesh, an engineering geologist, who gave a history of the area. In 1998, the city repaired the sewer beneath Asilomar because of damage caused by the Northridge earthquake, but in subsequent years city engineers discovered two weakened areas underlying the street. The hillside was further damaged during the heavy rains in January and February of 2005, which caused the federal government to declare disasters in the area. The city applied for funding to the Federal Highway Administration, asking for approval and designation of the road as an Emergency Relief project. However, the application was denied in early April, according to Robert Hancock of the L.A. City Bureau of Engineering. Asilomar Boulevard was originally designated as a federal highway and is still under the jurisdiction of the FHWA, even though it was never made into one. Hancock told the council and residents that the city had prepared an appeal to the FHWA that was to be sent out “in the next couple of days.” The FHWA did give the city some money “to repave the street,” Hancock said, explaining that the minor repair work would consist of re-leveling Asilomar and reconstructing the curb and gutter. “This is a kind of band-aid to make the street passable and safe,” he said. “It still needs a much more effective repair of the street.” A large depression in the southbound lane of Asilomar has turned a segment of this two-lane asphalt and concrete street into one precarious lane. Thirty feet below Asilomar, a street called Puerto del Mar that cuts into the 200-ft. slope between Asilomar and the Palisades Bowl mobile home park, is in significantly worse shape. What began as numerous tension cracks in the privately owned portion of Puerto del Mar has now split the street into large segments that are loose and crumbling, making the road impassable to vehicular traffic. “Road Closed/ Extreme Danger/ Do Not Enter/ Private Property” reads a sign on the locked gate at the west end of Puerto del Mar, where it meets the city-owned portion of the street. To the east, Puerto del Mar joins Tahiti Avenue, which extends into the Tahitian Terrace mobile home mark to PCH. Gordon Greenberg, who lives on the publicly owned portion of Puerto del Mar several houses up from the bluffs, talked at the council meeting about how the city belatedly dealt with the hillside problems, which have been ongoing for years. He explained that water ran down the publicly owned portion of Puerto del Mar onto the private section for years, saturating the area, before the city installed a drain in recent years to catch the runoff. Now, the city says it can only focus on repairing Asilomar but not the dilapidated Puerto del Mar or the troublesome slope’both of which have contributed to the destabilization of Asilomar’because they are under the control of private owners. The Palisades Bowl and Tahitian Terrace mobile home parks are under the jurisdiction of the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development. “The owners [of the mobile home parks] would be thrilled if somebody would come and do something,” said Dick Wulliger, an Asilomar resident. He added that the repair work the city has proposed for Asilomar is “not going to do a darn thing about the slide.” Hancock agreed, saying that the planned repairs “will do some good for people on the upslope but not for the slide itself.” The city’s proposed repair project, which is pending funding from the FHWA, includes a series of dewatering wells as well as a “side-hill bridge” over Asilomar Boulevard in order to prevent further damage. “I have trouble envisioning a bridge,” said Asilomar resident Janice Olds, who is concerned that the city is focused on making “cosmetic” repairs. Last month, the city filled a large, pond-shaped sinkhole located just south of the depression, with concrete. The area was blocked off with sawhorses, just like the depression area. Olds wonders why city and state officials have not made Asilomar a priority. She compared the potential danger of the situation to La Conchita, the seaside community between Santa Barbara and Ventura, where a mudslide occurred in January 2005, killing 10 people and injuring many more. In March, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger allocated money for a study of the La Conchita area, which had suffered another major mudslide 10 years earlier. Both were apparently caused by heavy rains that soaked the hillside bluff. “We haven’t seen any movement comparable to La Conchita,” Kunesh said. “It more or less creeps rather than suddenly fails.” Residents refused to accept this answer. “I think you can do more than you have been doing,” Wulliger said, adding that he is deeply concerned about what would happen to the area should an earthquake occur. “The city will be liable. Don’t wait until somebody is killed. Do it now.”