Chunk of Rancho Palos Verdes (California) is sliding into sea: Can it be stopped?
LOS ANGELES — A drive along the ocean on the Palos Verdes Peninsula is Southern California at its finest. Sunlight dances on the water. Coves are pristine, unsullied by development. Catalina Island appears so near you can almost spot the bison.
Look a bit closer, though, and you'll see signs of a disaster waiting to happen.
An above-ground sewage pipe snakes along the road. The pavement on Palos Verdes Drive South is rutted and warped, jutting up and down like an asphalt roller coaster. The hills are strewn with houses on makeshift foundations, perched on haphazard stilts and shipping containers.
The problem: A dormant landslide complex that shaped the south side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula for hundreds of thousands of years was reactivated 67 years ago, and it's threatening to destroy homes and infrastructure.
The solution: a $25 million series of wells that will suck water out of the ground and spit it into the ocean, effectively drying up the lubricated landscape enough to stop the land from sliding.
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The homes along and above the road, meanwhile, suffer cracked walls and foundations, busted pipes and crooked windows and door frames. One ranch in the Seaview neighborhood has a roof that's slowly caving in. Another, in the gated community of Portuguese Bend, is perched on 8 feet of timber cribbing, a makeshift remedy that essentially suspends the property on supersize Jenga blocks.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/chunk-rancho-palos-verdes-sliding-sea-stopped-17828953.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-Editors-Picks
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