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NORTH SALT LAKE — City leaders are looking to mediation with residents, utility companies and others this summer to find a permanent solution to the remaining repairs needed on the North Salt Lake landslide.
Most of the surface area of the landslide, which collapsed in the summer of 2014, has since been repaired and stabilized. But the bottom of the slope — which has collapsed in several areas so far this year — wasn't fixed because of a tangle of ongoing lawsuits.
Owners of a tennis club that was damaged by the slide say the city's plan for a buttress would have further limited their usable space, almost half of which is still unsafe because of the unrepaired landscape. The club is one of several parties involved in litigation for the cost and responsibility of the slide, including the city, the developer, utility companies and residents.
But Mayor Len Arave said he's hopeful mediation starting in the next two months will settle most concerns and allow crews to move forward with what's left to make the hill safe.
"Everybody that's been involved has tried to work toward a solution. But the fact of the matter is with something this complex and affecting property owners differently, it was just hard to get a final solution together. And we came very close, but we weren't able to do it," Arave said. "The mediation will be in June, and I'm hopeful that will be part of the solution. There's no guarantees."
Temporary fixes
In the meantime, city leaders are considering temporary fixes recommended by geotechnical engineers to address the soil at the base of the landslide, which slowly continues to crack, collapse and slump due to erosion and instability.
One way to add stability to fractures in the soil would be to fill them with more soil. Crews could dig ditches to reduce water buildup. Fabric tied down by buried pins could hold some of the soil together, and vegetation could also be used to stabilize the surface.
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Geologists, residents see more movement in North Salt Lake landslide
Geologists and residents have observed two small slope failures in areas of unrepaired terrain on the North Salt Lake landslide.The total cost of those projects would be as much as $36,000. But those are only temporary fixes, and they would be removed once construction on a buttress wall gets started, according to Hiram Alba, principal at GeoStrata.
"The hope is if we can control our water, our surface infiltration and if we can stabilize these near-surface things, we can minimize any more of that little sloughing and cracking and failures that are kind of manifesting themselves," Alba said. "All in all, we feel like the overall landslide mass is relatively stable."
The buttress is expected to cost an additional $180,000. So far, the city has spent about $560,000 on remediation, and the city's insurance has contributed $160,000.
Once a plan for the buttress is agreed upon, the project may have to be funded using capital funds or rainy day funds, putting further strain on budgetary resources, Arave said.
"It's been painful the whole time," he said. "Budgeting pressures are getting harder. We haven't raised property taxes in a long, long time. And we're working, trying to stay within the budget to make things work."
