Landslide in area over the Caldecott Tunnel raising concerns for Berkeley hills residents
OAKLAND -- Recent heavier rains have residents living in the hills above the Caldecott Tunnel growing increasingly concerned as they watch more and more of the hillside slide down into the canyon.
They say it's getting close to disaster and someone needs to do something to fix it.
Ken Berrick loves walking his dog Sky along a hillside path in Caldecott Canyon and it's easy to see why. The view is breathtaking.
"When you go out this way, you get to a promontory that looks out all over the Bay Area. It's just a spectacular spot," Berrick said.
Berrick said it's a view that most people have not seen for a long time. That's because the path (and a fire road) ends at a locked gate. Behind it is a massive landslide that has been years in the making. It started with a major water pipe break that Berrick said occurred sometime about eight to 10 years ago.
"I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of gallons. It went on for a couple days, I think," he said. "And it's been deteriorating ever since then. They did a makeshift fix for a while and that didn't hold. So, it just keeps coming back, further and further, every time we have a winter with some rain."
The original slide happened about halfway down the canyon but, over time, it has moved steadily up the hill. The black plastic laid down to stabilize the cliff has long since rotted away and you can see cracks forming in the ground, showing its instability.
"You know, when we're coming through and the dog walks to the edge of that, it scares me to death," Berrick said. "Because you just don't know when it's going to give."
Now the slide has moved so far up the cliff that it's perilously close to a giant, concrete EBMUD water tank atop the hill.
"I don't know the function of the particular water facility but it kind of doesn't matter," Berrick said. "It just, intuitively, seems like a bad idea to allow this to continue."
An EBMUD spokesperson said it's called the "Swainland tank" and has been empty and out of service for seven years. They said they were unaware of the landslide approaching it and were sending engineers immediately to look at it.
PG&E has an easement on the property for overhead transmission lines but spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian said that, while they have been aware of the growing slide, they have done nothing to correct it because it isn't directly threatening their towers.
"At this time, we do not need to take further steps to protect our assets," she wrote in an e-mail.
It turns out the water pipe that burst was the property of the city of Oakland and there is reportedly a project "in design" to replace the pipe and stabilize the hillside.
It's been a long time coming.
"First, in terms of this being a hiking trail and this being an area that should be an asset, it's just a shame that it's completely closed off," Berrick said. "And then, secondly, it seems to me it's probably an important fire road to have access from both directions. So, it's hard to understand."
He said he is concerned that the fire road being cut off could prevent or delay access in case of a wildfire. Caldecott Canyon was one of the areas severely burned during the Oakland Hills Fire in 1991.
Berrick said he has tried to get officials' attention about the advancing slide for years with little response. He's hoping that some kind of action will be taken soon before a huge water tank at the top of Caldecott Canyon ends up at the bottom of Caldecott Canyon.