LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lake County Special Districts has received a state grant to pay for permanently relocating the sewer system at the Lakeside Heights subdivision to more stable ground.
Special Districts was just notified that it will receive $215,300 in grant funds from the State Water Resource Control Board, according to Compliance Coordinator Jan Coppinger.
Earlier this year, Special Districts received $30,356 in grant funds from the State Water Resource Control Board for geotechnical and engineering costs for the project, bringing the actual total combined grant award to $245,656, Coppinger said.
Coppinger said the total cost to permanently relocate Lakeside Heights' sewer line is $264,320.
That difference between the project cost and the state grant will be covered by a grant of $49,020 that the Board of Supervisors approved as a local project match at its Oct. 22 meeting, Coppinger said.
“The grant award must be approved by the Board of Supervisors and we are working on getting it on the agenda as soon as we receive the official document,” Coppinger said.
A landslide that began in March damaged several homes in the 29-home subdivision, which is located off of Hill Road in north Lakeport.
About half of the homes would be emptied through red tags or voluntary evacuations. Most of the ground movement had stopped by late summer, according to officials.
Since the slide began, Special Districts has looked at options for protecting the subdivision's public water and sewer systems.
In April the Board of Supervisors declared a local emergency, and also authorized a $350,000 loan to Special Districts to address the subdivision's infrastructure.
The landslide threatened a sewage collection manhole, which the county said needed to be replaced to prevent a raw sewage spill and a subdivision evacuation.
Since then, work done on the sewer system includes installing two new manholes, pumps and temporary piping, officials reported.
Permanently relocating the entire sewer system has been a concern for county officials, as for some months the subdivision has been served by a temporary system, which has pipes that run above ground and a portable pumping station.
In October, two of the damaged homes were demolished by a contractor hired by the county as part of the effort to winterize and stabilize the slide area.
That same contractor also did tarping work on the slide area to keep it from getting wet, which could lead to it possibly becoming unstable again.
The county and the Lakeside Heights Homeowners Association both paid for the 1,200 sandbags and nearly five acres of tarping, according to association President Randall Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald said the tarping was damaged in the late November windstorm.
Earlier this fall, nearly four dozen property owners in the subdivision filed a lawsuit against the county, alleging that the county owned and operated infrastructure was to blame for destabilizing the hillside and resulting in the slide, as Lake County News has reported.
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