LAKEPORT, Calif. – County and state officials met with residents of the Lakeside Heights subdivision at a special Monday night meeting, offering updates on the effort to study and identify the forces that created a landslide that has destroyed several homes and damaged sewer infrastructure.
About 40 of the residents who live in the 29-home subdivision attended the hour-and-45-minute long meeting at the Lake County Courthouse in Lakeport.
Seven homes have been red-tagged, efforts are under way to reroute electricity and sewer services, county road crews are prepared to respond should the landslide impact Hill Road, and emergency road access to both the subdivision and Sutter Lakeside Hospital, located across Hill Road, have been worked out in the event that the slide worsens and cuts off the main roadways.
County Public Works Director Scott De Leon, the county’s incident commander for Lakeside Heights, told the residents who had lost their homes, “We’re heartbroken. It’s a terrible situation, one that obviously none of us would have predicted.”
While residents said they appreciated the information offered at the meeting, they still questioned who, ultimately, would be responsible for the situation and who had caused it.
Along with De Leon, on hand for the meeting were County Administrative Officer Matt Perry, County Counsel Anita Grant, county public information officer Kevin Ingram, Deputy Special Districts Administrator Jan Coppinger, Community Development Director Rick Coel, sheriff’s Capt. Chris Macedo, Lakeport Fire Chief Ken Wells, county Office of Emergency Services Assistant Coordinator Willie Sapeta and Public Health Officer Dr. Karen Tait, along with David Longstreth of the California Geological Survey and Roger Sigtermans of the California Emergency Management Agency.
De Leon said the county last week elevated the level of response to the situation at Lakeside Heights, bringing in additional county departments.
Previously, Lake County Special Districts has been the main agency responding to the crisis, which began to visibly manifest in late March, when ground fissures opened up along Lancaster Road and damaged homes.
On April 16, the Board of Supervisors declared a local emergency, with a view to getting state and federal funding and support for infrastructure repairs and, hopefully, for the homeowners as well.
Despite efforts to reduce water in the hillside – believed to be a main contributor to the ground instability – the ground has continued to move, according to Coppinger.
She said the landslide now is threatening a manhole which collects sewage for the subdivision. If the manhole can’t be replaced in time, there is the possibility of a raw sewage spill, which could require a subdivision evacuation.
At the same time, they are trying not to act too soon and disrupt the lives of residents, Coppinger said.
At the earliest, the manhole can be replaced by later this week or early next. The problem, said Coppinger, is unpredictability. They’ve seen 48 hours without movement, and then several feet of movement in just a day.
“If we do err, we need to err on the side of caution,” she said.
Coel said his department’s role has more to do with safety and the condition of the homes.
So far, he said they have red-tagged a total of seven structures, three of which have been destroyed by the ground movement. He said Community Development’s role probably will expand as they move into the cleanup phase.
Wells said officials have secured a way in and out of the subdivision through a secondary access in case the main road in is damaged. He said Kelseyville Fire and Northshore Fire have agreed to assist Lakeport Fire with responding in such a situation.
The county also has arranged a secondary access to Sutter Lakeside Hospital through an old clinic if Hill Road were to be affected by the slide, Wells said.
De Leon said county road crews are on standby around the clock should any debris generated from the landslide fall onto Hill Road, and a contingency plan also is in effect should a slide occur.
Longstreth said he was working to assist CalEMA with understanding the geology of what’s happening. He said the investigation is being handled by the county’s geotechnical contractor, RGH Consultants, which is sharing information with him.
Homeowners seeks answers about who can help
Dr. Frederick Johnson said drainage and irrigation problems had been known issues at the subdivision for years. He wanted to know where homeowners could go for help.
Grant offered to get contact information for various state and federal agencies and forward them to homeowners on Tuesday.
Regarding any escalation of the emergency, Macedo said the Office of Emergency Services’ care and shelter component would be able to offer accommodations for residents. He also reported that deputies have been asked to conduct extra patrol in the area.
Randall Fitzgerald, who bought his brick Colonial home in the subdivision 14 months ago, asked about best and worst case scenarios.
Longstreth explained that, based on RGH’s testing, the ground movement appears to be at a depth of around 20 to 25 feet; he said the slippage is taking place in the terrace deposits. That is below the fill layer that runs from a cut at Oxford Drive, where the fill is shallowest, out to the edge of Lancaster Road, where the fill is deepest, at around 15 feet.
As for Fitzgerald’s question about the worst case scenario, Longstreth said he’s not sure they have the information to make that determination yet, adding that water has been found below the rupture zone. “It’s not like there's one well-defined wet area,” he said.
Longstreth said he didn’t believe the movement would go beyond the fill area that ends at Oxford Drive.
Coppinger said Special Districts plans on installing emergency manholes and new lift stations, but none of that can be done until they know they have stable ground.
Fitzgerald asked if the board’s original geotechnical report mentioned water. Coppinger said it referenced shallow surface water.
Longstreth said the subdivision originally was proposed to be much larger, with the current development in the middle of that area. The initial geotechnical investigation in 1979 didn’t find groundwater in the developed area, however, groundwater was found in the northern and southern areas of the original development footprint, where it was relatively shallow, at about 10 feet.
Ultimately, he said deeper ground borings need to be done to understand the geometry of the landslide plane.
During the discussion, one woman asked why the county didn’t take action about the subdivision earlier.
De Leon said the county had required the developer to fulfill certain requirements. “Unfortunately we’re not the agency to go in and fix the previous developer’s problem.”
Ellen Chapralis asked how the developer had gotten a permit. “It really is a puzzle.”
“I wish I could answer that question,” said De Leon, adding that he understood her frustration.
He explained that every time a developer wants to build something and Coel asks them to do a geotechnical report, they complain about the cost to their project. He said such developers are constantly pushing back when Coel asks them to take those kinds of actions to protect homeowners. De Leon added that he can’t speak to what happened 30 years ago.
Coel said the requirements of the subdivision ordinances have been in place since 1971, and Longstreth added that the geotechnical report from 1979 seemed “pretty adequate.”
De Leon suggested that if the Lakeside Heights Homeowners Association is not able to fund additional studies, the homeowners could ask the Board of Supervisors to expand the studies the county is undertaking for the purposes of planning and being prepared for any future ground movement. But he warned that one supervisor already had raised concerns about the amount of money being spent.
Johnson said the homeowners are the losers in the situation. He said more needs to be done to delineate what has happened at the subdivision and what needs to happen to remedy the situation, a suggestion De Leon said made perfect sense. De Leon said that, up until now, the Board of Supervisors has directed that the focus be placed on protecting sewer and water infrastructure.
Grant suggested that the request for an expanded discussion on how to address the situation can be put on the next available Board of Supervisors agenda. She said the county also needed to make vigorous efforts, along with CalEMA, to discover what can be done.
Longstreth explained that the subdivision is impacted by water moving through the ground. “We don’t know what the rate of movement is.”
In response to questions about how the problems came to the attention of Special Districts, Coppinger explained that late last year, a minor “offset” in a Special Districts-managed pipe was discovered. Such offsets can happen when a pipe is moved by a root or some other object.
“It was a minor repair, we thought nothing of it,” said Coppinger, explaining that a point repair was made and checked. Then, in March, they checked the area again and saw it had moved. “Something happened.”
When asked about why red-tagged homes weren’t immediately being removed, Coel said that they don’t want to put heavy equipment out on a road that may fail, as they consider it unsafe.
A resident asked who would fix the roads that have cracked or been dug up. De Leon said the roads were the least of their concerns, but said the county would patch the road if it was still there in the future.
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