January 25, 2000

More slides predicted for Oregon Coast highway

NEWPORT, Ore. (AP) -- Landslides that already have strained budgets and tied up road crews are likely to keep dumping more mud and rock on Oregon coastal highways as La Nina keeps pushing soggy weather into the Northwest.

"I think the odds are good you're going to see more slides," said Steve Narkiewicz, senior geotechnical engineer with the Oregon Department of Transportation. "And, I think the odds are good some of our big (existing) slides down south are going to get up and gallop."

This year's winter is shaping up to be one of the wettest in years, said George Taylor, state climatologist.

"This La Nina appears to be the strongest one since 1988-89 and among the top five of the century," Taylor said, meaning the "wettest, coldest winters and the biggest snowstorms."

The state's two-year, $1.5 million road repair emergency fund was exhausted by December. And since then, slides causing at least $5 million in damage have occurred on U.S. 101.

The dramatic collapse of U.S. 101 on Cape Foulweather in December has cost $2.8 million alone, said Grace Crunican, director of the Oregon Department of Transportation.

She says she has little choice but to delay other state projects in order to pay for repairs.

"We cut into the rest of our budget and live within our means. We cancel some other projects," Crunican said. "We're trying to make cuts all over the place."

Since 1990, U.S. 101 has been closed 34 times for at least a day because of landslides or rockfall -- about three times a year.

Yet, the highway already has been closed three times between Florence and Depoe Bay this season, with winter only in its first month. The highway remains closed 10 miles north of Florence for a second week, and highway officials aren't sure when it will be open.

Geologists say more slides and closures are inevitable because sections of the highway are built on unstable ground.

U.S. 101 between Yaquina Head and Cape Foulweather, for example, is among the most geological active shorelines on the West Coast.

By Oregon State University geologist Roger Hart's count, a dozen slides along the four-mile route between Yaquina Head and Otter Crest are slipping toward the ocean.

"I'm trying to suggest the whole road is hazardous and the whole road should be repaired," Hart said of some especially dangerous sections.

But officials say that moving U.S. 101 would be costly, both politically and financially.

Rerouting the road inevitably brings strong responses from interest groups, and nearly every bypass project on the coast is on hold. Tourism also would be affected.

In Yachats, Mayor Arthur Roberts said the two-week closure of U.S. 101 south of town has affected every resident in the city of 600 people, who depend on revenue from motel room taxes. Business at local inns is off by 75 percent to 80 percent.

"If the tourist industry is hurt, then we are hurt," Roberts said