On October 9, 2010, a large sandstone rock block detached from the cliff above 1313 Granite Ave., broke into pieces rolled down the slope and several large boulders severely damaged the house at this address. A rock block on the cliff at this location and another rock block north of Shady Lane appear to be unstable and could detach and tumble down the slope. The staff recommends that the City Council adopt a resolution declaring an emergency. Passage requires ¾ of the Councilmembers to vote for the resolution. The emergency declaration allows the Council to award a contract to one of the three firms that staff has worked with to obtain their cost proposals and methods for stabilizing or removing the boulders at these two locations. Staff recommends that the Council approve a contract with Accurate Concrete Cutting, Inc. for this stabilization and removal project.

The City Council may:
• Approve the resolution and award the recommended contract. This provides the quickest method to remove or stabilize the boulders so that they do not damage additional property or injure a resident.
• Disapprove the resolution and direct staff to use a different method to secure bids for the work. The staff would hire a qualified consultant to write plans and specifications for the work, advertise for bids and submit the lowest responsive bid to Council for contract approval. This process will take at least 60 days, delaying a remedy until March, 2011, or later.
• Disapprove the resolution and direct staff to not intervene at one or either location. Staff has assumed that it has a responsibility to mitigate the negative impacts at these locations because most of the Rimrocks are within undeveloped city parks and because the falling boulders may threaten public safety. The Council could reasonably take the position that the falling boulders are a natural occurrence, the City does not have an obligation to remedy what has occurred naturally and similar events will continue to occur, even with human intervention.

Cost estimates to complete stabilization and/or removal at both locations range from $189,225 to $1,131,200. The only available funding source is the General Fund.

On October 9, 2010, a large slab of the sandstone cliff above 1313 Granite Ave. detached from the cliff face and tumbled down the slope. Several large boulders hit and severely damaged the house at this address. The largest boulder penetrated the north side of the house and has since continued moving slowly down the slope, damaging additional sections of the structure. Several smaller stones separated from the large one and hit the structure or settled on the slope north of the house. There is another large section of partially detached stone that remains on the cliff above the property. The owners of 1313 Granite filed a claim with the City and subsequently filed a lawsuit, but it has not been served on the City. MMIA assigned Moulton Bellingham as defense counsel. The claim states that the City may be responsible for the property damage because the rock slab originated on City parkland and rolled across City property and onto the claimant’s property before striking the house.

In January of 2010, the bottom of a large rock block failed, detaching from the cliff and breaking apart above Shady Lane. No structures were damaged from the large rock boulders which rolled down the talus slope. The property owners below the failure contacted the City immediately after the failure. City staff investigated and found a large portion of the rock block still partially attached to the cliff face. A consulting engineer has advised that both large, partially detached stones will eventually fall and may cause property damage or injuries. Predicting when they will fall is impossible but the Shady Lane boulder is the more imminent threat.

The PRPL Department spent months attempting to convince local, regional and national companies to assess removing the Shady Lane boulder and submitting a price estimate, but was mostly unsuccessful. Companies that perform this type of work were unwilling to commit to mobilizing to Billings for what they viewed as a minor project. Local construction companies were unwilling to submit a price quote because of the potential risk of damaging private property and because the work is unfamiliar to them. After the October 9 rock fall, PRPL was able to secure two price quotes from out of state companies and one from a Billings company to mitigate the potential hazards at Granite and Shady Lane. The quotes range in price from $189,225 to $1,131,200. The wide variance is due to different methods, tools and equipment that each firm plans to use.

The structure at 1313 Granite is heavily damaged and due to the large boulders in and around the property, it is unstable, unsecured and could damage other property or persons. Unfortunately, the property owner’s insurer has not agreed to coverage, which would be one way to pay for removing the structure and boulder from the property. Under Billings Municipal Code section 18-300, the City notified the property owner that a nuisance exists on the property and ordered him to abate the nuisance within 10 days. The Legal Department later extended that deadline for an additional 30 days, or until 5:00 p.m., January 3, 2011. The nuisance declaration allows the City to enter the property to abate the nuisance and to charge the property owner for the cost. If the City is going to mitigate the potential hazards, it should stabilize or remove the large boulder from inside the house, which may require that the house be demolished and removed from the property; stabilize and/or remove smaller unstable boulders that are on the slope between the house and the cliff, and; detach a remaining large rock block that adjoined one that fell, but which remains on the cliff face. The contractors plan to control the boulder’s rate of fall and/or the direction to reduce the potential for damage to private property.

The City staff believes the Council has at least three options, which are described in the “Alternatives” section of this report. Staff recommends the emergency declaration because it allows the City to avoid the competitive bidding process. Staff is convinced, based upon its experience over the past year, that competitive bidding will not attract additional bidders or yield a better price. In fact, it could produce higher prices since each of the three companies who submitted price quotes are now aware of the others’ plans and prices. In order to solicit bids, the City would expend additional funds for a consultant to prepare plans and specifications and the process would be much slower than the recommended action.