Shoring Work at Irvine Landfill Nearly Complete

After excavating tons of soil and installing thousands of feet of wells, the county’s Integrated Waste Management Department is nearly finished shoring up a 40-acre landslide at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine.

The agency, which is spending $3.3 million on the project, expects to have the area stabilized in June. If left unchecked, the buckling and fracturing earth threatened to reduce the landfill’s life span.

“It’s going very well,” said Linda Hagthrop, spokeswoman for the department. “We’re doing what we need to do to make sure the slide is stopped.”

She said the work was especially crucial during the rainy season, when precipitation threatened to make the situation worse.

“We want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to alleviate water underneath the slide area and any pressure on top of it and keep it from moving any further,” Hagthrop said.

The landslide, which at roughly 40 acres and 265 feet deep is one of the deepest slide structures in Southern California, was discovered in February 2002. High levels of ground water moved the tons of earth above it about 6 inches each month.

The department has removed about 1.1 million cubic yards of soil to relieve pressure and put in about 12,000 feet of horizontal wells to drain the ground water to prevent it from collapsing onto adjacent areas. A second set of 12,000 feet of wells is being installed.