From the Inbox:
The City workers who came to deal with it said the root ball was very small for a tree this size. They and neighbors guessed that was because it had no need to send roots out far in search of water. Even one day's worth of rain generates 6"-15" of standing water. It's pumped only when neighbors complain.This huge stone pine tree went DOWN at 3 a.m. on NYE. No one was hurt; it barely touched a car and missed the house next door.
The City refuses to fix the flooding problem and this time got off easy; had anyone been injured, it would not have been hard to find an attorney to take this case of negligence. The City's been warned repeatedly over the years about this corner, nicknamed not so lovingly by residents "Lake Fulvia."
The property just west of where the tree is located is where the City approved 9 houses to go in on what is now nearly-raw land. The City bizarrely claims that the extensive hardscape from the "Hymettus Estates'" 9 houses would somehow lessen flooding in the area. Locals call the ill-conceived project "Hymettus Mistakes."
UPDATE: From the Inbox:
Here's a photo taken on Dec. 16 before the tree fall. This is what the flood typically looks like before the City sends out the pumper truck. Large vehicles like to blast through the flood sending walls of water into my neighbors' yards.
Where will the tree lovers be when one of these trees fall's and kills somebody. Get real people!
ReplyDeleteFlooding happens all over the county, that doesn't mean the cities are liable. You brought your house in a flood area (at a reduced cost). Get your neighbors together and pay to fix it. Don't ask other taxpayers to pay for it.
What is the big deal with a small puddle for a few hours after a rain?
ReplyDeleteAre Encinitas freaked out over a few inches of water in a puddle for a day or so?
This is called natural and low impact design. It beats putting in concrete pipes and channels and draining all the polluted water to the ocean.
PS- Puddles are good. Unless they are causing serious hazards.
Get over it, and plant another tree. No need to "fix" every puddle in Encinitas.
Now the developers can put in a house where the tree stood!
ReplyDeleteFour years of drought has taken its toll on the urban landscape Certain non-indigenous tree species grow profuse canopies, but the root balls remain relatively small by comparison. Eucalyptus are notorious for this effect - when it rains and the winds blow, don't be under one.
ReplyDeleteReducing the extremity to a "small puddle" has come straight out of the mouths of city workers.
ReplyDeleteBut 15" of standing water that does NOT drain is due to years of ignored maintenance by the city. Sometimes it stays for days.
A "small puddle" does not cause road closures after one day of rain, as this corner does. It does not cause home damage, as one neighbor has experienced: warped floors from standing water sloshing up against his house and ruined HVAC equipment in the garage.
There is nothing "natural and low impact" about this situation, and it is NOT by design, unless you call planned neglect "design." There was a time the area drained properly but no longer does. The city persists in ignoring the issue.
While the city buys and builds trophy projects, our infrastructure goes without maintenance. This corner's flooding has been well documented with the city. Neighbors have spoken at council meetings and sent photos of the extent of the flooding.
This tree was on city land; some of you really want to bet there would not be a successful suit in the making were anyone or their property injured? Think again.
You're not calling an abandoned school full of asbestos and lead paint a trophy project are you?? How dare you, that school is a civic treasure.
DeleteWell, now that you mention it.... Pacific View, the already-compromised (due to poor design) Moonlight lifeguard tower, Streetscape....
DeleteLeucadia does not want Streetscape and its expense can still be avoided. Shelve it and invest in infrastructure. Orpheus pavement is completely torn up by standing water on its own lake. Sandbags permanently stacked on properties is sadly a usual sight.
Give residents the choice: Streetscape or infrastructure maintenance and repair that create real fixes, not band aids.
Pump truck in Leucadia Park still there after dark last night, with barricade tape keeping residents off a good portion of the park.
Stop the insanity, council. We get it: developers have ruled all decisions, but enough is enough. Enough is too much, in fact. Who on the council will have the balls to shore up and protect what we have, and stop the mad run to pour more cement?
Streetscape would be OK without taking out heritage trees, reducing to one traffic lane in each direction and installing six roundabouts that would do nothing but gridlock traffic and increase emergency response times. As the project is proposed, it couldn't be more stupid.
DeleteTotally agree. And honestly before mixing so much as a single bag of cement, fix the freaking roads and drainage.
DeleteBig contracts don't get awarded that way, but too bad. High time to serve residents, not the construction industry.
That puddle is effectively a bioswale, which is an environmentally-friendly way to deal with storm water.
ReplyDeletePlant native speicies, then no problem.
I just looked at a USGS topo map. You bought a house in a natural rain catch basin. Go look for yourself. The elevation contour lines form a closed circle with dashed lines pointing into the depression.
ReplyDeleteYour gripe should be with Mother Nature, or your own questionable decisions.
I don't own a house there, but have had to go around the flood area. Driving the area is doubly challenging when the "lake" on Orpheus closes that section of the road, too.
DeleteMuch of the runoff comes from the fire station at the top of the street. A full cement apron was constructed with the promise from the city there'd never be any runoff from it.
Anyway an area where the city has deferred keeping the sump drain clean is still lack of maintenance any way you look at it.
This is not Mother Nature; otherwise why would the city keep telling area residents it's trying to find the money to do the needed upkeep??
Find the money? Hasn't the city been been bragging about budget surpluses in recent years?
DeleteYes, and they can't have it both ways. It seems the council doesn't think we notice when they say they can't afford something, yet finances are "in fine shape" and we have surpluses.
Delete8:38am Thanks for the voice of reason after the trolls and certainly some of those from the city staff chimed in.
ReplyDeleteThe City [stain] Mark density bonus housing project will intensify this condition with more run off that the included minor catch basin won't stand a chance at controlling.
With all the hardscapes in those nine houses flowing, the future can be seen by the neighbors. Planning, not so much. Council, Not so much.
If City [stain] Mark wanted to build true estate homes, they could have built within the existing city codes and brought forward five magnificent homes that this community and the neighbors would have welcomed to this project with opened arms.
Any fool, but those at the city, can see the flooding will become all the worse with this density bonus project contributing to a poorly designed and long ignored situation.
AS city pensions grow out of control, expect more and more deferred maintenance as pensions and salaries eat up more and more of the cities budget.
ReplyDeleteExpect more development too. We don't need city shills telling us about natural swales. We have them in Cardiff too. However, so much hardscape has replaced open land that the natural swales are overloaded. Now when it rains, even moderately, the runoff pours down the street carrying all kinds of contaminants, including dog poop, into Rossini Creek, San Elijo Lagoon, and the ocean. It's all the development upstream that didn't exist before. The infrastructure is the same, but the strain on the infrastructure has increased greatly.
DeleteMore of the same will be coming. The trolls at city hall want to keep their jobs with Cadillac pensions. The city has already said that infill will continue in Leucadia. It isn't just on Fulvia. Expect more "puddling" on North Vulcan, Orpheus, and Highway 101.
If a tree falls in Leucadia, and no was around to whine about it and threaten lawsuits on EU, did the tree actually fall?
ReplyDelete$#17 happens. Thankfully no one was hurt. Nothing to see here.
Yea, Right Troll !!!! Nothing to see here, if you are compromised or blind. Take your choice. There is little other explanation.
ReplyDeleteStone pines dying all over SoCal. Blame Encinitas local gov't
ReplyDeleteIn Santa Barbara.
and Saratoga.
and Pasadena.
Blame Encinitas.
Blame City of Encinitas ignoring its drainage issues while falling over itself to buy/build trophy projects.
ReplyDelete11:15 and 12:54 trolls working hard without success to cover for City negligence.
Yes, yes.
DeleteThe problem in Santa Barbara was drought which weakened the Stone Pine trees, and a bark beetle infestation. The problem in Saratoga was drought and bark beetles in a Stone Pine. The problem in Pasadena was drought, bark beetles, and a downpour which softened the ground and allowed the Stone Pine tree to absorb hundreds of pounds of water and become top heavy and tip over.
The problem in Encinitas is government.
The problem in Encinitas is ignoring maintenance. This tree sat in standing water, not its natural environment.
DeleteIt's no secret even to the council that this is an area that is overdue attention, as they've remarked on it several times.
Maybe they didn't circulate that memo to your level at the city, 2:57.
9:00 "just looked at a USGS topo map?" Where do they have those? At the City! Those maps are not readily available to the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteWrong again, my friend.
DeleteGet thee to the Google machine!
Haha whatever, troll.
Deletegood lord man - have you never hiked and obtained topo maps prior to the journey? It's been a while but one could buy from the USG for ~$2 a square. I guess that they're a bit more now but whatever.
DeleteYes, whatever. The poster "just happened to be looking," a shill/city troller without a doubt. Otherwise why the mock passing interest in trying to make the city's excuses? And the "topo" lingo? Please, troll.
DeleteThis area did not always flood, but you're unwilling or unable to comprehend that. The problem is endless approvals of "infill" without the corresponding infrastructure improvements needed to support the BIA love-in.
Give us all a break, would you, and go back to work...or whatever it is you call what you do at the city that you charge us taxpayers for.
Yes.
DeleteThey are paying me a fortune in overtime to stay late at city hall to post for 12 readers at 10:30pm.
That, or I'm a private citizen who doesn't automatically $#17 on my hometown, because I'm not a dour, angry person looking for scapegoats for why my life hasn't gone according to plan.
One or the other. You decide.
This guy or girl whining about the puddle on Fulvia that I drove through with my car with 6 inch of clearance is pathetic. Your life must be pretty dam good if you consider this a problem.
ReplyDeleteConsider yourself lucky to have 1st world problems.
The streetscape will save lives. Puddle draining wastes money and is bad for the earth and ocean.
-Long Time Leucadian
Streetscape will save lives! In what universe?
ReplyDeleteIf a poll were ever allowed to be taken from businesses on the 101 and the residents west of that Major Arterial, it would be resoundingly denied.
This disaster in the making has gone through so many revisions over the years without the public being kept up to date, it is difficult to know exactly where this plan is at any one time.
Insisting that a legitimate census be taken from the residents needs to happen.
There are a very select few pushing this, while those most affected are left out. As was pointed out earlier, this was done a decade ago and was clearly not what the majority of businesses and residents wanted.
That has not changed and the pushers know it. Council knows it and yet, it is forging ahead against the majority of residents wishes. Nothing new here. The question remains, why is this being allowed to progress when a large majority do not want it?
Crappy has nothing to do with anything. Turning OUR 101 into a generic every beach town look, like what was shown on the story boards, is crappy.
Turning this major arterial into single lanes north and south is crappy and dumb.
Forcing half of the streets from the west of the 101 to drive south before they can u-turn and head north, is crappy.
Aligning the 5, or is it 6 single lane roundabouts, north of Leucadia Blvd and one south of there, will cause backups like no one has seen.
Real estate interests are pushing this. For those doubters, take a poll for yourself, of which you won't be doing. You already know if this were ever allowed to be voted on, it would tank.
Meanwhile 7:56 you haven't planted so much as a single flower in the medians have you?? Nope, not so much as one measly lousy flower.
DeleteWhy?? Because you like it crappy.
11:21, my definition of crappy is cement everywhere, which streetscape will bring. the only people pushing for it are those who stand to profit: construction industry and those at the city pushing it for job security and who knows what other perks?
Deleteno point to planting anything, the city won't water it.
6:35 - look at the picture EU just added. Come back and tell us that's a puddle. It clocked in at 16' and didn't go away for days.
ReplyDeleteCome on city shill, we're waiting.
x' = x feet
ReplyDeletey" = y inches
Looks like what I'd expect if I bought property in a rain catch basin.
I would support replacing the asphalt in that spot with permeable concrete, and installing a vault to increase water column pressure to inject the water underground faster.
City shill still clinging to "it's the buyer's fault even thought there was a time when the drainage worked properly" fairy tale.
DeleteNo one cares what you support, 8:26. You're a city shill whose opinion is bought and paid for.
Oh, dear. You have hurt my feelings, anonymous internet blog comment person.
DeleteThat's okay. I forgive you.
Parks and Rec can open a boating concession at this spot! Bring in the ducks!
ReplyDeleteBig deal.... it was not 16 inches in the road, I drove through it with my prius and that thing has about five or six inches of clearance under it.
ReplyDeleteI bet that puddle was gone within 2 days. Super whiner.
And I bet that's Tony K posting at 7:34 and above that with the "I could support..." band-aid fix comment. The dismissive attitude toward concerned residents, the know-it-all bully tone...and now the Prius all have given you away.
DeleteA resident showed a photo with a yardstick up to 16" of water at a Council meeting in early 2016. It was and continues to be a big deal, and yet you claim he lied and all evidence of extreme flooding is imaginary.
Instead of looking into this recurring issue, you choose to call the neighbors liars, ignoring the image of standing water that is anyone with eyes in their head can see is most definitely not a "puddle." This reaction is sadly typical of what Leucadians and residents citywide have come to expect from you, a self-proclaimed "local."
What a poor excuse for a civic leader you've turned out to be. You really are disgusting. Super disgusting.
8:26 and 7:34 are not the same person.
DeleteCan't speak for 7:34, but 8:26 is definitely not Tony.
16 inches - Really? did you dig a hole or what - I'd like to see your measuring tool. There was no way there was a 16 inch depth of water on road that cars needed to drive through. I believe you are way off like so many other lies by the "keep it crappy" loving crowd.
ReplyDeleteI feel sorry for your wife - after all those years of you claiming 6 inches.
Sigh- first world problems.
7:34 is not Tony either, its me. But whiners dream up all kinds of shit in their little pin heads.
DeleteOdd that you have to persist in calling the many witnesses to that lake liars. The pictures are a hoax and the pump trucks aren't there after one day if rain. The closed road signs are a mirage. What exactly is your problem?
DeleteWhat, exactly, it's your problem?
Mine is I can't write, clearly. But seriously - we want to know.
Delete