Local Emergency Extended Due To 'Unprecedented' Land Movement

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CA — The Rancho Palos Verdes City Council will consider extending the city's local emergency declaration as land movement has hastened to over 13 inches per week in some areas.

According to the latest surveying data, land movement velocity across the landslide complex has accelerated 1.41 times above the velocity in March-April.

Recent land movement rates are approximately 7-11 inches per week in the Abalone Cove Landslide, 9-12 inches weekly in the Portuguese Bend Landslide and 2-7 inches per week in the Klondike Canyon Landslide. The middle of the landslide is moving the fastest, at over 13 inches per week.

"The PBL, ACL, KCL, and a large portion of the Ancient Portuguese Bend Landslide Complex outside of the historically mapped boundaries is involved in significant active landslide movement moving at unprecedented rates, predominantly in response to two consecutive seasons of significantly above average rainfall," city officials said in a staff report.

Work on the Emergency Hydraugers Project, which involves the installation of two horizontally drilled dewatering wells that will extract water from underground, is well underway. Since May, the contractor has completed drilling two test boreholes in the Portuguese Bend area and has started drilling a third, city officials said.

The city council meeting will take place on July 2 at 7 p.m. in McTaggart Hall at Hesse Park and via Zoom. Watch live at rpvca.gov.

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