Photo: the new retaining wall built around the old boy scout facility on the bed of Rubio Creek.
Heinz Ellersieck said he heard a lot of construction noise across Rubio Creek, but he was 89 years old and didn’t care to venture into the hot weather to check it out.
But last week -- after the retired Caltch professor celebrated a 90th birthday breakfast with friends -- he took them to look at some new young oak saplings that were growing near his home overlooking the creek.
And that’s when they saw a wall being built ... right on the creek bed itself.
“We went down there and Heinz was flabbergasted,” said Lori Paul, a Chaney Trail neighborhood resident and forest activist who was one of his breakfast companions. “They stopped the creek.”
What they saw, Paul said, was a stone wall on the west bank that now blocked half the creek -- a wall made from settled stones taken from the creekbed and broken up. Willows, oak trees, and vegetation had been removed from the area, and sand had been removed from the creek bed to backfill the wall.
And, Paul said, she found a harmless gopher snake that had been pounded with a trowel by one of the workers who were building the wall. As cold-blooded animals, snakes take a long time to die, Paul said.
Photo: another view of the extent of construction
The property on the west side of the creek above Rubio Canyon Dr. across from Ellersieck is owned by Moninder and Ruchi Birdi, according to county officials and neighbors. There are two buildings on the property: the Birdi residence and an octagonal building that has been there since the property was a boy scout camp. Ellersieck, a 30-year resident of the area, said that during heavy water years the stream would overflow into the former scout building.
According to Lillian Woods, director of operations for the Rubio Land & Water Association, that building would never have been built today. The water company, which has water transmission pipes on the east side of the stream and easements on both sides, was alerted by Ellersieck about the new construction. Woods said that she went with a water company supervisor, Ellerseick, and Paul into the streambed, and “there was a gentleman operating a Bobcat, going into the area of the stream -- they basically altered the stream.”
The water company is concerned, Woods said, because the rainy season is coming and their pipes are in harm’s way. “Water will come down, hit the wall, be diverted to the east, and potentially wash out our pipes, the water supply to our shareholders, and our access up there to fix it. We’ve notified all the proper agencies, and we’ve been promised that it will be handled. It needs to be taken down immediately -- if we had rain like we had last year, we’d be in trouble in a month or two.”
Another concern, said Paul, is the effect of the construction on the wildlife -- frogs, snakes, insects and others -- that inhabit the stream bed.
The Birdis were not at home when Woods inspected the construction, but the group managed to reach Moninder Birdi on his cellphone, Wood said. They were told he didn’t know he had to have permits for the work.
“We are actively pursuing this with the proper agencies, and our lawyer’s involved,” Wood said. “We took a lot of pictures -- there’s scaffolding up, piles of oak trees cut down, which was illegal -- they’ve taken boulders and sand out of the stream to build, and backfilled with sand from the stream bed . They’ve taken so much that they unearthed pipes from the canyon”
Wood said that “When we showed up there, some of the workers took their picks and shovels and took off.”
According to Marty Moreno, principal engineer with the Los Angeles County Dept. of Building and Safety, they contacted the Birdis and presented a stop work order and have charged them with two violations: building a retaining wall without the appropriate permits, and grading without a permit.
Moreno said that “basically, we’re going to ask for Mr. Birdi to remove the wall and give us some kind of restoration plan that will mitigation any erosion problems that may have beeen created ... it’s unfortunate that Mr. Birdi was not aware of the permitting requirements, but he seems very cooperative. He seems like a nice guy.”
Moreno said that the county was aware that there was a ticking clock on clearing the stream before rainy season. “I think there’s an understanding that we want the encroachment into the river removed, and whatever works to have that in place so we can limit problems to any adjacent private properties.”
A message left at the Birdi’s home, asking for comment, was not answered by time of publication.
