Bluff wall collapses, injuring a worker By Michael Burge and Debbi Farr Baker San Diego Union Tribune February 22, 2008

ENCINITAS – A makeshift retaining wall at the top of an Encinitas beach bluff collapsed yesterday, trapping a landscaper in thigh-deep dirt until rescuers freed him and took him to the hospital, city officials said yesterday.

“When it's combined with high tide and and storms, it accelerates this action,” said Jim Knowlton, the city's geotechnical consultant. “When they become saturated, they're prone to fail, as this did.”

City officials called the collapse a “minor failure” that was limited to the bluff's top.

The collapse didn't rain debris on the beach 65 feet below the home in the Leucadia neighborhood where the accident occurred, and it damaged no structures, Greg Shields, a city senior civil engineer, said yesterday.

The 42-year-old landscaper, whose name was not released, was not seriously injured, Encinitas Fire Division Chief Scott Henry said.

“Essentially they had landscapers down there doing some kind of work” to protect the bluff, Shields said yesterday.

Bluff failures are common on the west side of Neptune Avenue where yesterday's collapse occurred, and where million-dollar homes with stunning ocean views sit sometimes precariously on the cliff's edge.

A major collapse in 2000 trapped and killed Rebecca Kowalczyk, 30, while her husband watched helplessly from the ocean.

The house is located south of Beacon's Beach, between Daphne and Europa streets.

Illegal, freelance retaining walls are common in the neighborhood, Shields said.

He said the owner, the Linda A. Schwartz-Van Kessler Revocable Trust, had no permit for the work the landscaper was doing and the city will order it stopped. The homeowners could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Knowlton, of Geopacifica Inc., said the property had been cited previously under prior owners.

“This house has a long history of failures and problems,” Knowlton said, but added, “the house is not in any danger.”

Shields said the type of retaining wall at the home, consisting of vertical posts linked by wooden beams, is a feeble attempt to halt the inevitable erosion.

He said the bluff consists of Torrey sandstone, bound sand that crumbles when exposed to the elements. The makeshift post-and-beam retaining walls seen in Leucadia do more harm than good.

“It's like pouring sugar on a table and sticking a pencil in it,” Shields said. “It's not going to hold.”

Knowlton said the wall was probably built by a prior owner.

“These things are unpermitted and they're unengineered and they're doomed to failure,” he said. The landscaper undermined the wall by digging beneath it, he said.

That section of Neptune Avenue is the site of an old landslide, and excavating the bluff accelerates erosion. Previous collapses have left remnants of old fences, staircases, even pieces of patios scattered along the cliffs.

He said it's not a matter of if a bluff will collapse, but when, and residents can do little to stop it.

“Unless their house is put in some kind of danger or distress, they can't do anything,” he said. If a house is threatened, the owner can get an emergency permit from the (California) Coastal Commission and city to protect it.

Homeowners' efforts to armor the cliff base with sea walls have prompted protests from environmental groups, particularly Surfrider Foundation, who say the walls prevent the natural erosion that deposits sand on the beach.

Solana Beach levies fees on homeowners who build sea walls at the cliff base, to compensate for the loss of beach sand.