Crews set up heavy equipment in north San Clemente on Friday, Feb. 23, as work got underway to build a new 160-foot-long catchment wall at the site of the latest landslide along the regional rail line that runs beachfront through town.
The $7.2 million project at Mariposa Point, where a popular pedestrian bridge was also destroyed in the landslide about a month ago, will build a wall between 10- to 15-feet tall that will be supported by steel beams dug into the dirt about 30 feet deep. Drilling is expected to start as early as Tuesday, according to an update by the Orange County Transportation Authority.
Passenger traffic has been halted north of the area since the landslide.
The wall could be finished by late March, though that could change depending on weather and securing the necessary materials.
The slope remains heavily saturated and the project team continues to take measurements and monitor the slope, but no additional soil has been removed because geologists have warned that removing large amounts of soil could cause additional instability of the privately owned hillside above, OCTA officials said.
It’s still unclear how the pedestrian bridge, which is a key connector along the popular 2-mile coastal path that opened in 2005, will fit in with the tracks and the wall on the thin affected stretch that is wedged between the bluff and the ocean.
City officials are already working with engineers to come up with plans for rebuilding the section of bridge that had to be removed, which should be ready in a week or two, said Mayor Victor Cabral.
“It’s important, it will be rebuilt, one way or another,” he said. “It’s important to this community, used by thousands of people … it’s part of the city, it will be rebuilt.”
The OCTA owns 50 feet from the center of the rail tracks in both directions and on the landward side the city owns 20 feet outside of that, Cabral noted.
“Where (the bridge) will be placed is yet to be determined,”…
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