SAN CLEMENTE : Stabilization of Cliffs Could Take Months

Crumbling bluffs over El Camino Real, where an endangered plant species was removed to a safer location last weekend, might cause the highway to be closed for months rather than weeks, officials said Monday.

Although emergency repairs may be finished in two to three weeks, a state Coastal Commission geologist will decide Friday whether more permanent work is needed, officials said.

“With the danger of falling rock from the excavation,” City Engineer William Cameron said, “we would have to keep the whole road closed.”

The highway from Avenida Pico to Camino Capistrano was shut down a week ago when city workers clearing a small landslide after last week’s rains noticed deep chasms, some as wide as six feet, cutting into the 50-foot cliffs.

Although city officials originally predicted that El Camino Real would be reopened in a few days, geologists determined over the weekend that simply pulling down the precariously balanced sheets of rock and earth would be a “Band-Aid” solution.

“It’s a two-phase project,” said Bill Brasher, project manager for the Lusk Co., a development firm which owns the 250-acre site beside the highway. Repairing the immediate danger would make the cliffs safe for up to three years, he said.

But geologists hired by the city and the Lusk Co. agree that a second phase of repair is needed, Brasher said. That repair would consist of contractors excavating farther back into the cliffs to provide a safer, less severe slope.

Although he declined to estimate how long a second phase would take, the Lusk spokesman said it would be longer than the two to three weeks predicted for emergency repairs.

Any extensive cutting into the cliff face would require the permission of the Coastal Commission. A geologist from the state agency will inspect the ridgeline on Friday, Brasher said.

“He will be the key to how we can go with this,” Brasher added.

The Lusk Co. overcame another potential delay last weekend when they arranged to transplant from the cliffs a plant which is on the state’s endangered species list.

Known as Dudleya blochmanae , the tiny succulent grows only on cliff tops, where it remains buried and dormant until a steady rain, said Mike Evans, co-owner of the Tree of Life nursery in San Juan Capistrano.

About 18 flats containing thousands of the small green plants were transported to the nursery on Saturday, Brasher said.

Resembling a miniature ice plant, the succulent was a subject of controversy during discussions over failed plans to build a Richard M. Nixon library on the 250-acre site.

San Clemente has suffered from a series of landslides over the past 16 years, including a rock fall in 1979 which closed a section of Coast Highway for several months.