April saw two notable land slippages in Northern Kentucky, both of which coincided with periods of exceptional rainfall early in the month. The first occurred in Ludlow at the access point to a Fischer Homes development in the hills above the city. The second occurred in Campbell County along KY-8 and led to the road’s closure to allow state workers to clear the debris.
No one was hurt in either incident, but the slippages highlighted a peculiar aspect of NKY’s geography, one that frequently comes up in conversations on infrastructure and developmental expansion.
The Hillside Trust is an advocacy group that studies hillside topography and geology in the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Region. It has consulted with various governments and institutions on both sides of the Ohio River.
Eric Russo, executive director of The Hillside Trust, said that landslides tend to be more common from early winter to mid-spring, when the region sees high amounts of water runoff from snow melt and rain, respectively.
Russo actually spoke out against the Ludlow development in June of 2021, arguing that early geotechnical work on the land indicated a previous history of landslides. Moreover, he said, the kind of tree clearing that happens during development can exasperate problems with flooding and run-off.
The development, called Cityview Station, has been a point of contention from the beginning, drawing mixed reactions from city leadership and community members. Proponents of the development argue that it’s beneficial for the city’s economic health, but others in the community are concerned that the construction might lead to slippages and flooding. This tension is reflected even in government actions surrounding the development: The Kenton County Planning Commission recommended against allowing the development, but the Ludlow City Council later voted to override them.
Russo said that much of the topography in the region undergoes a phenomenon called creep, which is a sagging of land down a hillside, often occurring over a long period of time, like the movement of a glacier. It manifests in the form of tilting trees, leaning utility poles and buckled infrastructure.
“Even though you may not be able to see the movement taking place, they can move rather imperceptibly throughout the year,” Russo said. “You might see a few inches moving a year.”
Usually, when one hears about loss in relation to a landslide or slip, it’s economic loss rather than a loss of human life. Yet, tracking landslides and slippages is haphazard and decentralized, so accurately measuring total economic losses over time is difficult. Still, the 2018 Kentucky Hazard Mitigation Plan pulled estimates from the state’s area development districts, which gave rough monetary estimates for the amount of damage caused by slides up to that year. According to the plan’s section on landslides, the estimated losses incurred due to landslides in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties as of 2018 were roughly $15 billion, $30 billion and $11 billion, respectively.
Tracking the number of slides and slippages often falls to the transportation cabinet, as slips on major roadways are easier to spot. Jake Ryle, a public information officer with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, informed LINK nky that six slide repair projects have occurred in Boone, Kenton,and Campbell counties since Jan. 1, 2023. Ryle said that rough costs for repairs for these slides was $525,000.
In addition, the Northern Kentucky Area Development District’s most recent hazard mitigation plan mapped out recorded landslides in the region as of January 2023.
Seeing these numbers, it would be easy to get pessimistic, but not everyone is all doom and gloom about it. Greg Sketch, an engineer with Fort Wright-based engineering contractor Berling Engineering, said that with proper preparation, the risk of slides and slips is minimal.
“You can construct on anything if you construct it properly,” Sketch said.
Sketch serves as the Crescent Springs representative on the Kenton County Planning Commission and served as the Boone County engineer for about 20 years. He voted in favor of the Cityview Station development when it came before the commission.
Berling Engineering is contracted as the city engineer for Ludlow, and its experts regularly inspect the development. SD1 also performs regular erosion control inspections.
Sketch, who did not characterize what happened in Ludlow as a full-on slide but rather a minor slip in the area’s topsoil, was broadly complimentary of the geotechnical and grading work on the hill and said that proper grading and geological compaction are crucial for avoiding slippages and slides.
“As long as it’s constructed properly, you won’t have any problem,” Sketch said.
When it came to development, Russo stated that it was important for all involved parties to be well-informed so that everyone could make good decisions and mitigate the dangers. Given the region’s geography, this was not something that developers could ignore or side-step.
“If we lose these wooded hillsides, as time goes on, it will become more expensive to try to make up for that loss of hillside by having to build infrastructure that can detain storm water, etc.,” Russo said.