Completion of Years-Long PCH Sewer Project Expected by May

Bonnie Frankel has finally learned to block out the almost nonstop drilling, rumbling trucks and traffic bottlenecks on her little stretch of Pacific Coast Highway.

It’s been more than two years since Santa Monica officials started replacing nearly 8,000 feet of quake-damaged sewer line that runs from the Santa Monica Pier to Chautauqua Boulevard--and right in front of Frankel’s driveway.

The prolonged construction has snarled traffic along the crowded coastal route, infuriated locals along the stretch once known as the “Gold Coast” and sparked a lawsuit by those who want to keep traffic moving.

But Frankel, her neighbors and the estimated 75,000 drivers who inch through the corridor each day finally may be able to relax come Memorial Day, when the $25-million project is expected to be finished--two years after its expected completion date.

If workers can’t make that deadline, completion will be postponed until the fall. Each year, crews have stopped construction from Memorial Day to Labor Day to avoid impeding beach traffic.

“I enjoy adventure more than anyone, but this has been brutal,” said Frankel, 57, who lives on the first floor of an apartment building facing one of the construction staging areas. “You’ve really got to love the beach to put up with the hassles of living here.”

The project has closed at least two lanes of PCH for eight months each year since late 1999, with Caltrans reopening all lanes during the tourist-heavy summer months.

City officials acknowledged that the project is disruptive but said it is necessary to repair large cracks the system sustained during the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

“It’s not in any imminent danger of breaking, but we’re all kind of holding our breath until the new line is finished,” said program manager Jack Schroeder of the city’s Disaster Recovery Office.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is paying more than half of the project’s tab, with the city of Los Angeles picking up the bulk of the remaining cost, he said. (Los Angeles pays because the line primarily serves Pacific Palisades, within Los Angeles city limits.)

The new 60-inch pipe, part of a $90-million sewer system overhaul, will serve the Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades areas for the next century, making a two-year delay almost negligible, Schroeder said.

“If we’re going to be this disruptive, we only want to do it once,” he said.

Santa Monica had originally projected that the sewer line would be repaired within eight months of its November 1999 start date, at a cost of $9.7 million.

But what seemed like a simple excavation project soon came to resemble an archeological dig. Fallen trees, 10-inch rocks and other objects had to be extracted from the ground, Schroeder said.

“We just didn’t have any idea what we were going to encounter,” he said. “It wasn’t a one-year project that ran over. It was a three-year project that we horribly underestimated.”

Although workers try to drill through at least 60 feet of dirt per day, soil conditions sometimes allow the tunneling machines to move only two to three feet.

Workers recently explored a 30-foot-wide hole, where electrical wires dangled and gas lines snaked along the tunnel walls. The machines have ruptured gas lines twice in the last three years.

“You’ve got to get this drill down a labyrinth of existing utilities,” Schroeder said. “It’s a little bit like threading a needle.”

Gas lines and timber aren’t the only obstacles Santa Monica has had to overcome.

Actor Donald Sutherland and attorneys Chuck Levy and Browne Greene, representing the residents who live along the highway, sued Santa Monica when the city said sewer construction would force turning off the signal light that controls traffic at the California Incline--the long grade that delivers traffic between the coast highway and Santa Monica’s bluff-top business district.

A barrier erected in the middle of the highway would have prevented drivers traveling down the California Incline from turning left, according to the suit.

“It would have been a total disaster, with no way of getting your car into traffic,” said Greene, whose office is in Santa Monica.

Negotiations with Caltrans and the city have resulted in the reinstatement of the left turn.

Through suits and snarled traffic, the nearly 40 men doing the labor continue to work.

Building the new sewer line is Modern Continental, the same company handling the monumental “Big Dig” project in Boston, which will bring a subterranean freeway and park to downtown. The company will have its employees in Santa Monica working in two shifts--24 hours a day, seven days a week--until they have drilled through the last 1,700 feet of dirt.

Frankel, who has lived in her apartment for 14 years, said she has little sympathy for the drivers who have been slowed by the construction.

“Dealing with traffic isn’t that bad. Imagine having to listen to drilling 24 hours a day,” she said. “I’d rather them work less hours than listen to this [noise] all day and all night.”

Although many local residents said they understand that the sewer line needs to be repaired, they complained that passing motorists block them from entering their driveways.

“Everybody’s nerves are tense trying to get through that bottleneck,” said area resident Peter Hamilton. “Courtesy just goes by the wayside when people are frazzled.”