# Impending landslide near Yakima **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 19, 2018, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impending-landslide-near-yakima/806946 "2018-01-19T05:03:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2018, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impending-landslide-near-yakima/806946/41 "2018-02-01T02:11:01Z")
One heavy rainstorm could do it. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2018, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impending-landslide-near-yakima/806946/42 "2018-02-01T02:14:58Z")
That’s geology for you–it doesn’t conform to the time sense of little skittery mammals on the surface. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2018, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impending-landslide-near-yakima/806946/43 "2018-02-01T03:11:13Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > [The time-lapse of these 3 photos shows quite a bit of movement from 5 December 2017 to 12 January 2018](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/science/dramatic-new-images-show-rattlesnake-ridge-slide-moving-over-time/), a span of just 5 weeks. I don’t think I’d want to be driving on that highway below this ridge just now. The “state officials” saying that a few rocks are going to land in the quarry or on the road are completely insane. And building a barrier won’t work either, unless it looks a lot like the Hoover Dam. This is not a surface slide. If you look at the link from Bo, focus on the bottom left hand side of the 3-photo time lapse. See that bulge moving forward? That’s the base of the wedge that’s about to start accelerating. Reports are that fissures are 250 feet deep and growing. As rain seeps into those cracks, and the cold gets in to those deep areas to further contract the material that’s been 80+ degrees for the last several thousand years, the scenario will change drastically. Also, the basalt they are counting on has been shaken and vibrated by quarry blasts for how many years? There’s no way it is still solid enough to anchor the lower material. I can’t see what the geologists are banking on when they say it won’t accelerate again. I wish they were telling us more about what they basing that opinion on. And from what I can see on google maps, this only has to go about 2000 feet to cover rt. 82, dam the river, and bury rt. 97 as well. If the really want to prepare, they should start on widening Konnowac Pass road. It’s about to get a whole lot busier. If I lived there, I’d be using it already. I did find [this comforting](http://www.yakimaherald.com/free_article/rattlesnake-ridge-still-moving-but-landslide-predictions-have-stopped/article_6fe9d902-00d6-11e8-895c-239e8c4ff9c3.html): > [@](#): > > Meanwhile, emergency officials have turned over videos taken earlier this month to the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office for possible charges against a number of people seen scrambling around massive cracks that have opened up above the quarry. And finally, for the “Pitch Drop” addicts jonesing for a new one, here’s a [Rattlesnake Ridge Web Cam.](http://www.yakimaherald.com/slide/) ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2018, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impending-landslide-near-yakima/806946/44 "2018-02-27T01:19:59Z")
[Apparently there was new activity this morning](http://www.yakimaherald.com/slide/experts-reports-of-increased-landslide-activity-on-rattlesnake-ridge-are/article_c576f954-1b34-11e8-8e4e-c3bb434e3149.html). > [@](#): > > Reports of dust seen in the quarry below the Rattlesnake Ridge landslide caused a stir Monday morning as area residents wondered if more rocks were coming. > > But after reevaluating the site, experts say the dust was the result of a few falling rocks and is to be expected during the landslide. > > The some 1,300-foot slide is still moving about 3 inches per day – right about where it was two months ago, according to George Machan, a geotechnical engineer with Portland-based Cornforth Consultants. The first picture they have is really cool. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2018, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impending-landslide-near-yakima/806946/45 "2018-02-27T17:34:41Z")
How does this affect property rights, I wonder. At the base of the slide is a quarry, right; does all that dirt and rock sliding into the quarry become theirs to sell if they wish to? If it does become theirs, does that mean they’re responsible to pay to have it removed if they can’t sell it? It’d be a hell of a business model, a quarry that keeps filling back up again. I would expect there are probably laws that govern what happens when some object falls from one person’s property to another’s, but do those laws still hold when it’s the very land that’s moving? All of that presupposes that the hillside and the quarry are owned by different people, which may not be the case here. But does anybody know any general answers to those questions? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impending-landslide-near-yakima/806946.md?page=2)