The Slide Toward the Tide : Malibu Hopes $20-Million Plan Will Finally Stop Mountain

It’s been on the move for 17 years, gobbling up a roadway and houses and sending people fleeing for their lives.

Every inch of the way, the silent landslide that is creeping down Rambla Pacifico has defied the geologists and engineers who have tried tossing giant boulders, concrete berms and elaborate ground-water drains into its path.

Soon, however, officials in Malibu hope to throw about $20 million at the stubborn mountain.

That’s how much it may take to finally halt the landslide that in recent days has dangerously picked up speed--moving four feet in the past two weeks toward homes in Las Flores Canyon.

Malibu leaders are drawing up plans to use federal and state funds to virtually rebuild the mountainside a half-mile north of the ocean. Once that is done, the destroyed road can be repaired.

It’s about time, say suffering Rambla Pacifico residents--one of whom watched his driveway collapse beneath the moving van as he fled his home in 1983 when the landslide hit.

Even for a community where calamity is commonplace--”where the slide meets the tide” is one wry description, patience along Rambla Pacifico is wearing thin.

The slide itself has destroyed more than a dozen homes since 1978. It severed Rambla Pacifico in 1984.

The 1993 brush fire wiped out all but three residences left standing in the slide zone--along with about 130 others unprotected by firefighters in part due to access problems caused by Rambla Pacifico’s disappearance.

“It’s been an incredible battle,” said Robin Stone, a mountainside resident who is president of a group of battered survivors that calls itself Reopen Rambla Inc. “Finally, something is being done.”

Aided by Rep. Anthony Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), Malibu municipal leaders are working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state Office of Emergency Services to finance the mountain stabilization. Although $2 million in emergency work has already started, allocation of most of the funding is awaiting completion this month of engineering plans, said City Manager David N. Carmany.

Malibu officials say federal money and a 25% state matching grant is available if they can show their repair plan will remedy an emergency situation. It will take about two years to stabilize the mountain before Rambla Pacifico can be reopened, Carmany said.

Last month’s storms--coupled with runoff problems created by the 1993 brush fire--have added a sense of urgency to the project. Las Flores Canyon Creek, which flows against the eastern toe of the landslide, has accelerated the slippage.

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Instead of creeping several inches a month like it has in the past, the slide is now moving two feet a week. That puts the mountainside in danger of damming the creek and flooding an inhabited portion of Las Flores Canyon.

Jack Tuefel’s white clapboard home of 22 years could be the next house to go. It sits across the stream from the slide’s crumbling mountainside.

“I’ll sleep much better when it’s fixed,” Tuefel admitted Wednesday. “This thing’s been a constant worry on my mind. Seeing everything up there destroyed before your eyes was terrible.”

Tuefel, a retired firefighter who sprayed his home to save it in 1993 as neighboring structures were consumed by the firestorm, has moved out for safety reasons. His newest worry is that engineers and geologists may decide to reroute Las Flores Canyon Creek through his two-acre lot as part of the stabilization process.

Tuefel complains that engineers conducting soils tests already have dug up part of a creek-side retaining wall that he credits with saving his house from flooding in last month’s deluge.

The soil analysis is being done to determine where to construct the new creek bypass. Engineers have recommended a concrete-walled channel a few hundred yards long to move the stream away from the slide area. They say it may be necessary to build the channel across Tuefel’s lot, along with three or more adjoining parcels.

The creek relocation is a key to halting the slide, according to experts with an Irvine geotechnical consulting firm that is working with the city of Malibu.

Mike Phippes, an engineering geologist with Bing Yen & Associates Inc., said Wednesday that the slide will be attacked from above and below once the creek is moved.

A “gravity buttress,” much like a huge earthen dam constructed from a combination of dirt, boulders and concrete, will be constructed at the bottom of the slide in the old stream bed. At the top of the slope, meantime, some of the dirt pressing down on the slide will be bulldozed away to lessen the weight on the mountainside.

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After that, fissures and cracks will be filled and a network of above ground and subterranean drains will be installed to divert rainwater, according to Phippes and Greg Silver, project manager for Bing Yen. Then it will be safe for officials to restore Rambla Pacifico through the three-quarter-square-mile slide zone.

“FEMA says we need to show them the most cost-effective repair method, but one that everybody feels comfortable with,” Silver said.

FEMA spokesman Phil Cogan in Washington indicated Wednesday that the stabilization plan will come under close scrutiny. “We can’t make any promises until we have an opportunity to review it and judge whether it’s appropriate for FEMA funding,” he said.

Although bottom-of-the-slide landowners such as Tuefel are waiting to see how much Malibu officials are willing to pay them if their property is needed for the new creek channel, others are hopeful that the project will end years of legal wrangling. That includes lawsuits and claims over the road closure and subsequent fire losses filed by Rambla Pacifico residents against both Los Angeles County and the 4-year-old city.

“The city and the county have been pointing fingers of blame at each for years,” said Santa Monica lawyer Edward Burg, who represents several mountain landowners.

“Right now, we’d just like progress to move faster than the mountain now seems to be moving.”

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Remaking a Mountain

Officials in Malibu are seeking about $22 million in disaster funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to halt a recurring landslide that has destroyed eight homes and wiped out a key roadway in the Santa Monica Mountains. The rebuilding project would take about two years.

THE PLAN:

A) Move Las Flores Canyon Creek away from the bottom of the landslide so it would no longer contribute to the slippage.

B) Channelize the stream with concrete for a few hundred yards. New creek channel would cut through about half a dozen lots, depending on a soil analysis . Only one of the lots has a house on it.

C) Repair the sliding mountain side, by buttressing its bottom with combination of dirt, boulders and concrete and then removing some of the mass at the top, filling cracks and fissures remaining on the slope itself with soil.

D) Build a network of new drains and subsurface drains to divert rainwater off the hillside.

E) When the hillside is stabilized, rebuild and reopen Rambla Pacifico.

BACKGROUND:

* 1978: The mountainside, about half a mile north of the ocean on the west side of Las Flores Canyon, begins slipping.

* 1984: Slide undermines Rambla Pacifico, causing it to collapse. Residents must take a four-mile detour over narrow, winding roads to reach Pacific Coast Highway.

* 1993: During brush fires, firefighters say an access problem is one reason that about 130 homes on the mountainside were destroyed.

Compiled by BOB POOL / Los Angeles Times