Local News in Brief : Hearing on Sea Barrier Permit

Although work is nearly completed on an 800-foot sea barrier in Rancho Palos Verdes, the city will hold a public hearing Friday on issuing a coastal permit for the project, which is intended to protect the toe of the Portuguese Bend Landslide from wave erosion.

Robert Benard, city environmental services director, will conduct the hearing at 9 a.m. at City Hall, 30940 Hawthorne Blvd.

Alarmed by heavy waves in March that threatened the work the city has done to stabilize the landslide, the city authorized emergency construction of the temporary $50,000 barrier. It consists of stacked wire baskets containing stones.

After a review prompted by a complaint by Palos Verdes Peninsula environmentalist Gar Goodson, the state Coastal Commission told the city that it should not have exempted the project from a permit requirement and advised it to hold a hearing. Benard said the city could have challenged the commission but instead decided to issue a permit, which it can do under its local coastal plan.

Robert F. Joseph, supervisor of regulation and enforcement for the Coastal Commission, said the work is neither an emergency nor a minor public works job, as the city contends.

Benard insisted that the city “had every right to do it the way we did it” after the city geologist warned that coastal erosion was “significant and rapid” and threatened to destabilize the slide.