Rancho Palos Verdes Gets $1.9M To Reduce Landslide Pumping Costs

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CA — Rancho Palos Verdes has been awarded more than $1.9 million in federal funding to provide permanent electrical power to its landslide dewatering wells, potentially reducing the roughly $53,000 the city spends each month renting and fueling generators to keep them running.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently notified the city that the funding had been formally approved through its Pre-Disaster Mitigation program, according to the city's Oct. 14 Weekly Administrative Report.

The money will pay for infrastructure needed to establish a permanent power source for deep dewatering wells at the toe of the Portuguese Bend Landslide, where crews have been pumping groundwater from beneath the unstable terrain in an effort to slow land movement.

Those wells have removed more than half a billion gallons of groundwater over the past two years, according to the city, making them a critical component of its ongoing landslide stabilization efforts.

Currently, the city relies on rented generators to power the pumps, at a combined rental and fuel cost of approximately $53,000 a month. That amounts to about $636,000 annually if expenses remain at their present level.

Connecting the wells to a permanent electrical supply could eliminate much of that recurring expense, although the city has not provided a projected savings figure or announced when the infrastructure will be completed. The grant requires a local funding contribution of $646,500.

The project has been several years in the making. The city was originally selected for landslide remediation funding in 2022 through congressionally directed spending secured by the late U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

However, as the landslide emergency intensified, the project's scope was revised to avoid overlapping with other federal grants supporting the city's response.

The newly confirmed award represents another source of federal assistance for Rancho Palos Verdes as it continues efforts to manage the Portuguese Bend Landslide and the financial burden of maintaining essential infrastructure in the affected area.

It is separate from the more than $54 million in FEMA grants recently awarded to fund the city's Voluntary Property Buyout Program, which will allow the acquisition of 27 properties severely affected by ongoing land movement.

While the buyout funding is intended to help affected homeowners relocate, the electrical infrastructure grant addresses the continuing cost of operating the groundwater removal system.

The city has not announced a construction schedule or a date when the generators could be replaced.