A Race Against Sands of Time : Homeowners Press Agency for OK to Fix Seawalls

Faced with a race against time and tides, owners of a cluster of houses perched on a crumbling oceanfront bluff in Encinitas are expected to receive permission today from the state to take emergency steps to save their homes.

Officials with the State Coastal Commission said they expect to grant the four homeowners in the 700 block of Neptune Avenue an emergency permit to build a seawall to help stabilize the bluff.

“This is a painful situation for everyone involved,” said Paul Webb, a coastal planner with the commission. “No one likes to see someone’s home endangered.”

Beginning of Problem

The bluff’s problem accelerated a week ago when the face of the bluff gave way as a construction crew--working without city or state permits--attempted to install bulkheads to control the steady erosion of the fragile bluff. Three workers were partly buried by the slide, but escaped serious injury.

Since then, the bluff has continued to crumble. One home beside the main section of the slide is hanging precariously at the edge of the cliff, and experts fear it may be damaged or slide down the bluff if corrective action is not taken soon.

On Tuesday, homeowners met with representatives of city and state agencies to ask permission to take emergency steps to rebuild the bluff and protect it from the surf that lashes at its base.

Although no decisions were made, the meeting cleared the way for the homeowners to apply to the Coastal Commission for the permits to begin stabilization work early next week.

“The concern now is that any more delays could be catastrophic,” said Bob Milmoe, owner of an engineering firm hired by the homeowners to design the project. “Until we get corrective measures in place, there will continue to be slides out there.”

Milmoe said he expects the initial construction to stabilize the hillside will take a month to six weeks.

Work on Seawall

His plans call for installation of foot-thick steel posts at the base of the bluff as the framework for a 30-foot-high seawall of concrete and timber. The slope will be reestablished behind the massive seawall in a series of terraced steps supported by other walls.

But the entire project will be delivered only at a steep price. Milmoe said the lower wall alone, which will stretch along 200 feet of shore below all four imperiled residences, is expected to cost more than $200,000.

Milmoe noted that the bluff problem is not unique to that segment of the coast. Up and down the shore, the sea is taking its daily toll on the cliffs, endangering the expensive houses on top.

“Geology 1A tells us that, any time you have a rocky coastline, it’s going to be a receding coastline,” Milmoe said. “So this will be an ongoing problem. And the problem really comes home to us now that it’s knocking at the back door of all these houses.”

Although uncommonly high tides are expected this weekend, Milmoe does not look for the waves to cause further damage. The major slide last week occurred at the top of the bluff, which is composed mostly of sand, and was not the result of undermining by waves, Milmoe said.

Encinitas officials say they suspect the bluff’s top gave way in part because of the construction work, which was undertaken by one of the homeowners despite an order from the city banning all work until proper permits were approved.

Problem ‘Exacerbated’

“When you get this kind of bootleg work, it causes more problems than it solves at the very least,” said Craig Jones, a senior planner with the city. “I think many of the bluff failures are at least exacerbated by the illegal work that goes on.”

Indeed, with the beach seriously eroded along many sections of Encinitas and other North County coastal cities, the waves have had their way in recent months with the bluffs.

Concerned about the problems from the surf and irked by the cumbersome process of procuring permits from the city and state, many residents have taken matters into their own hands.

In the past few weeks, the Coastal Commission has received reports of a dozen different illegal projects along the oceanfront in the area, Webb said. Moreover, he can recall offhand only a few homeowners who have bothered in the last six or seven years to get coastal permits for seawall construction or to fill caves created by waves.

“The ultimate solution all the way along is to get the heck away from the bluff because, in time, they’ll keep falling away,” Jones said.

Milmoe agreed, but suggested that homeowners can curtail the problems by taking proper precautions.

“It’s a problem we’re all going to be facing if we want to live close to the water,” he said. “You can buy time . . . but it all depends on how much money you want to spend.”