Rancho Palos Verdes considers $10,000 aid to landslide victims as 5 new dewatering wells go online

The Rancho Palos Verdes City Council will consider giving $10,000 to each of 280 homeowners impacted by recent land movement next week. The assistance, which the council will vote on during its Tuesday, Oct. 1, meeting, would come directly from $5 million the city recently received from Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn’s discretionary fund.

The city geologist, meanwhile, will also give an update on the land movement on Tuesday and discuss the progress RPV has made on five new dewatering wells installed near the shoreline.

Residents in the Portuguese Bend, Seaview and Beach Club neighborhoods have been living without electric or natural gas service for weeks because the increased land sliding in those areas has made it unsafe to provide the services, according to the utility companies.

Homeowners, left to their own devices, have installed propane-powered generators and, in some instances, solar panels to energize their houses. The costs, for many, is in the tens of thousands of dollars.

To divvy up the money, RPV staffers recommend the city set up a grant program, according a report. The grant program could be set up as early as next week and could get money into residents’ hands within a week of them applying for the funds.

A grant program, according to the staff report, would provide one grant per residential property owner and require them to submit receipts. Covered expenses would include alternative power sources, temporary housing, storage expenses and hardening measures to allow them to remain in their homes.

The financial assistance from Hahn stipulated the $5 million be used to address immediate emergency relief efforts for landslide-impacted residents.

Hahn, in a Friday statement, said direct financial assistance to homeowners is the best way to put the money to work.

“These residents are going through hell,” Hahn said, “and, up until now, they have shouldered the financial burden of this landslide entirely on their own.”

The city estimates resident assistance to total $2.8 million, the staff report said. The remaining $2.2 million, according to a letter of agreement between Hahn and RPV, can be spent on other conditions associated with the landslide, including Palos Verdes Drive South, critical infrastructure such as the city-owned sewer system in the Portuguese Bend Community Association and dewatering wells.

Upon hearing the news they may soon receive financial help, many in the landslide area were circumspect. But they all agreed they were grateful for even small amounts of help.

“It’s something; better than nothing,” said Sallie Reeves, who has relocated her husband, John, who is disabled, multiple times as the landslide continues following them — cracking and tilting room after room of the Portuguese Bend home.

As so many landslide-impacted residents have learned over the last several weeks, not having access to public utilities is costly.

Resident Tim Kelly said the funds will help and will be very much appreciated. But, he added, “it will not go very far for most people.”

Having to design and install stand-alone electric solar systems are costing Kelly and his neighbors anywhere from $40,000 to $80,000, he said. And then, Kelly said, they’ll have to find a backup generator solution for rainy days. Tthere are also costs associated with converting their heating, cooking and hot water systems from natural gas to propane.

And folks had to procure and install new internet systems as Cox Communications, their service provider, pulled out of the area as well.

“We would gladly trade the $10,000 for our original services to be reinstated,” Kelly said.

Indeed, Sheri Hastings estimated that, so far, the landslide has cost her upward of $600,000. That includes appliance conversion, generators and a $300,000 building loss of her horse stables.

Various fundraisers have also been implemented to help landslide victims, including an online art auction spearheaded by Hastings. Since going live on Thursday, Hastings said, the auction has raised nearly $18,000, all of which will go directly to residents.

Hastings said she was grateful to Hahn.

“Janice expressly told them (the city) it was to go directly to residents,” Hastings said. “Bless her for that.”

But even if RPV approves the $10,000 grant program for individual homeowners, Hahn said, it will fall short.

“In the middle of this disaster, $10,000 may not be enough to cover the costs of what these homeowners are facing,” Hahn said. “But I think it is important to get them this help while we continue to urge state and federal partners to make impactful individual assistance available.”

But not everyone agreed the money should go to residents. Mike Chiles’ home was impacted by the landslide and he’s a longtime contractor who’s worked for the Abalone Cove Landslide Abatement District.

“They shouldn’t be getting a penny,” Chiles said of residents like himself. “The money should be going to the landslide abatement district work.”

Chiles is an advocate for putting the $5 million with other funding to fix the issues with water running down in the canyons, into fissures and, ultimately, into the landslide slip planes.

As for Phipps’ upcoming report to the council, the geologist will discuss options for continuing an emergency dewatering well project.

Phipps’s presentation, according to the staff report, will include information on the average movement velocity for the entire landslide complex, which has decelerated 13%. But, according to the staff report, identified areas of landslide movement are still shifting approximately 80 times faster than they were two years ago.

With the discovery at the end of August of a deeper landslide plane 330 feet below the surface, public works officials, geologists and engineers from the two abatement districts had to change their strategy.

Instead of horizontal hydraugers, used in the past to pump out ground water from the landslide planes, experts had to pivot to using more vertical dewatering wells to reach the deep slide plane.

Crews installed the first of five deep dewatering wells on Sept. 10 along the shoreline between South Bay Archery Club and the Portuguese Bend Beach Club, the staff report said. Once it was determined that well was able to penetrate soil and rock, and reach the deep slide plane and extract water, crews completed the installation of four other wells.

The five deep dewatering wells combined, according to a recent RPV email update, are now removing about 600 gallons of water per minute to relieve pressure from the landslide area.

And, RPV said, preliminary data shows land movement has slowed down at a greater rate in the area since the wells were activated.

But these dewatering wells, while effective at reaching the ground water deep in the slide plane, will eventually shear off due to continued land movement, the staff report said. Twelve days after the first well was installed, though, il had not yet sheared off, as of the staff report’s publication. Plans are already in place to re-drill the wells as they shear off, according to the report.