La Conchita Retaining Wall Is Not To Blame

By Erik Skindrud

The hillside above the Ventura County (Calif.) community of La Conchita is seen here following a March, 1995 slide that destroyed nine homes. At least 10 people died when the hillside moved again 10 years later.

Who's to blame when a waterlogged hill slides, destroying homes-and as happened in Ventura County, Calif. this January-sweeping lives away with it?

After the slide, some legal experts said that victims might try to pin the tragedy on the failure of a retaining wall built after the hillside collapsed in 1995.

But there's one problem with that course of action. Despite media accounts, the 18-foot-tall wall survived the tragedy largely intact.

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The county spent close to $400,000 to build the wall, which helped engineers reopen a portion of Vista del Rincon between Fillmore Street and Zelzah Avenue. The wall was built on site and was not a commercially-produced segmented retaining wall. The steel-and-wood structure may have given residents peace of mind, but it was never intended to hold the entire hillside back.

Anyone suing the county over the wall would have to show that it directly contributed to the landslide, Santa Barbara attorney Joseph Liebman explained to the Los Angeles Times.

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It's unlikely that any lawsuits sparked by the recent slide will succeed, Tarzana attorney David B. Caselman told the newspaper.

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