San Clemente bides time on protecting wastewater pump station from a landslide
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A collapsing coastal bluff is imperiling a key part of San Clemente’s sewer system, the Linda Lane pump station, like never before.
Ten years ago, the city put up a retainer wall to guard the pump station. An active, ever-encroaching landslide has since forced San Clemente to scale the wall up to 8 feet in height and reinforce it with raker system supports.
Despite all efforts, the slow-moving landslide has breached the wall around the pump station and the city now faces the threat of a sewer spill.
The San Clemente City Council on Tuesday weighed whether to approve a $2.3-million emergency contract to armor the pump station with caissons and tiebacks before the arrival of significant rainstorms or gamble by delaying the project for a few months to solicit competitive bids.
Train service linking Orange and San Diego counties will once again be halted — this time for an estimated six weeks — as crews attempt to reinforce a particularly unstable section of the coastline in San Clemente.
“It’s at its limit with soil and material that’s going over the top of the wall and starting to push up against the pump station,” David Rebensdorf, San Clemente’s public works director, told the City Council. “The concern is, if we have another rainy season — not necessarily like last year, but the year before — we’re going to continue to have more slope movement and then, potentially, damage to our building.”
According to a city staff report, the pump station and beach trunk sewer line transport about a million gallons of raw wastewater every day to San Clemente’s water reclamation plant to be treated.
San Clemente contacted two local contractors in April and received a $2.3-million bid from Alliance Diversified Enterprises to begin work on protecting the pump station.
At the meeting, council members debated declaring the situation an emergency, which would give City Manager Andy Hall the ability to approve the contract on that basis.
Rebensdorf noted that an emergency designation would allow construction to begin in August and wrap up before the next rainy season. By contrast, competitive bids would delay the completion by two-to-three months.
“If you have a car that’s about to break down, and you’ve got a long trip coming up, do you try and make that long trip with the miles that you have on it, or do you get the repairs done up front in that timely manner?” Councilmember Mark Enmeier asked rhetorically. “I’m leaning more along the lines of doing the emergency repair.”
Enmeier found himself in the minority as his council colleagues cited concerns about the cost of the emergency contract.
“This fence, I’m convinced, isn’t going to break tomorrow or next week,” Mayor Steve Knoblock said. “We’re balancing the risk of it failing versus the cost savings to the taxpayers. I’d rather have the taxpayers save a little money, get a competitive bid, get the best price possible and get the job done.”
Knoblock’s threat assessment contrasted with an emergency coastal development permit issued to San Clemente by the California Coastal Commission in February.
“It is the city’s opinion that it is not a matter of if, but when the landslide will fully topple the wall, which can happen at any time,” the permit stated. “The city has stated that if no action is taken, the lift station will likely be severely damaged or completely destroyed which may lead to potential untreated sewage reaching the beach [and] ocean which is less than 100 [feet] away from the lift station.”
Coastal Frontiers, a consultant hired by San Clemente, outlined an exploration plan to find sand deposits for future beach nourishment projects.
Such a breach could also send sediment from the landslide closer to the San Clemente Beach Trail and even the Lossan railroad tracks, which are already under emergency erosion repairs led by the Orange County Transportation Authority in partnership with Metrolink through this week elsewhere along the city’s coastline.
Councilmember Zhen Wu said he was confident that with La Niña conditions over, San Clemente could afford to bargain the fate of the pump station for a few months in hopes of securing a cheaper contract without any harm to nearby infrastructure.
“The chance that we have very heavy rain in this winter isn’t great,” he said. “There’s always risk. I’m willing to take that risk. It’s going to save us money.”
San Clemente would have to extend its emergency permit in the meantime while securing necessary railroad permits.
“I believe the staff report,” Councilmember Rick Loeffler added. “But if we can save some money on this, it might help us in other public works projects that we have going and that we have to do.”
At the end of the discussion, the council voted unanimously to put the project out for competitive bids.
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