At the latest PCH Task Force meeting in Santa Monica on October 27, Pacific Palisades resident Stuart Muller displayed numerous photographs of K-rail, steel beams and concrete blocks. Muller wanted to know why, after his numerous complaints to Caltrans and city officials, the items had not been removed from along the highway below Castellemmare and between Temescal and Potrero Canyons. Marvin Pruitt, Caltrans Superintendent for Area II, told the assembled group, which included State Senator Fran Pavley and Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, that he had cleaned up the yard at Castellemmare.   Muller pointed to the photographs he had taken of steel beams.   ’Everything we could move, we moved,’ Pruitt responded. ‘Everything that’s left [steel I-beams] will have to stay because there’s no place to store it.’   Pruitt continued, ‘If you drive northbound on PCH between Chautauqua Boulevard and Las Flores Canyon, you’ll notice different barrier walls in place. At each of those locations there have been rockslides and mudslides over the years. It’s a protective wall for motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists and homeowners on the beach side of PCH.’   Pruitt noted that after the previous PCH Task Force meeting in January, L.A. County had offered Caltrans space in its yard off Topanga Canyon Road to store some of the K-rail now at Temescal and Potrero.   ’One K-rail section weighs 10 tons because it’s built with concrete and has rebar,’ Pruitt said. ‘A loader is being brought to Potrero and a second loader to the county yard and some K-rail will be transported to the site in three to four weeks, but not all will be transported.   ’K-rail is placed along PCH for the same reason [as barrier walls]. With emergency construction materials close by, all we have to do is get the proper equipment there to start placing it where needed. None of us can predict when heavy rains may come, or a slide may occur, but we do know from past experience that emergency lane/road closures are common along PCH.’   Muller asked that the remaining construction debris located between Temescal and Potrero be removed. Pruitt said Caltrans was only responsible for the K-rail and a pile of sand and a pile of base material, but that the rest, including a water tank and a shed, belonged to the City of Los Angeles. According to Councilman Bill Rosendahl’s senior deputy Norm Kulla, the shack and water tank removal will be part of renewed infill-construction work in Potrero Canyon, which might begin early in 2011. ‘I can’t guarantee or confirm timing; timing for all construction projects has been a moving target in my experience in government,’ Kulla told the Palisadian-Post. ‘We’ve requested the shack and water tank removal be included for the restart of the Potrero project. We are working with other departments to see if we can get these items removed earlier, but nothing has been finalized.’   In other action at the Task Force meeting, Kendrick Okuda, program manager for the Bureau of Engineering’s Proposition O bond program, said the city is finalizing a construction schedule for the 4,500-foot Coastal Interceptor Relief Sewer (CIRS), which will take year-round dry weather runoff to the Hyperion Wastewater Treatment Plant rather than allowing it flow into Santa Monica Bay.”   Work is expected to begin at the beach parking lots (near the Annenberg Beach Club) before the end of the year, but PCH southbound traffic will not be affected until 2011.’The timeline for lane closures has not been completed, but work is expected to continue through fall 2012, and extend north to the Will Rogers State Beach parking lot near the L.A. County Lifeguard headquarters.   Okuda said that the public will be informed of lane closures through road signs, via the press, on Twitter: @PCHPartners and on the PCH Partners Web site: www.pchpartners.org.’He is scheduled to brief the Pacific Palisades Community Council at its meeting on Thursday evening, November 18.
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