A group of Huntington Beach residents continues to get uneasy whenever they hear the word “easement.”
That’s because the Orange County Sanitation District has started moving forward with the Miller-Holder Rhone Lane Sewer Easement Cleanup Project, saying it needs access to a 30-foot-wide utility easement that runs through the backyard of the residents’ homes on the west side of Rhone Lane, south of Heil Avenue.
To do this, it will need to get rid of anything on the easement — which, for many of the lane’s residents, means backyard swimming pools have got to go.
Ted Beresford explains the easement line and the property line on Rhone Lane in Huntington Beach on Tuesday.
(James Carbone)
Ted Beresford, who purchased a home in the contested area in 2024, had his pool demolished last month. The previous property owner had already signed off on it.
Scott Monastra, whose property sits roughly near the middle of the block, said he got communication on Tuesday from O.C. San that the work would be reaching his property sometime in the next four weeks.
Monastra and his wife, Cathy, have been enjoying their pool since 1999. But they’ll have to say goodbye to it, as well as a covered patio area.
“It’s going to be all dirt,” Scott Monastra said.
Cathy Monastra said the hardest part was breaking the news to their five grandchildren.
Frank Clarke, 81, of Huntington Beach, is worried that the O.C. Sanitation District will demolish his pool on Rhone Lane.
(James Carbone)
The Monastras reluctantly signed an agreement with O.C. San back in 2024, when the since-delayed cleanup was originally slated to start, allowing the public utility to come in and demolish the structures.
District officials say the project is necessary so the easement containing the sewer is accessible. The 69-inch wastewater pipeline transports at least 10 million gallons of water daily to area reclamation plants.
Communications director Jennifer Cabral said agreements are in place with owners of 13 of the 29 properties on the block. Though encroachments are typically the homeowner’s responsibility to remove, as a compromise, those 13 homeowners are not being charged for the demolition.
Cabral said a 10-foot cinder block wall — 2 feet below ground and 8 feet tall — will be installed behind the properties, with a gate for access if requested. That will replace graffiti-filled back fences that have been there for decades.
“We were trying to do it as neat and clean and the easiest way possible,” Cabral said. “The intent was never to get into litigation with people or to fight this. In our mind, the easement language is very clear, and everybody knew about it when they purchased their property. They just actively took on risk.”
The O.C. Sanitation District placed a fence on Rhone Lane in Huntington Beach as it has begun an easement cleanup project.
(James Carbone)
The majority of the remaining homeowners on Rhone Lane, including the Rizzo family, are in active litigation against the sanitary district. The utility has submitted a motion for a summary judgment that is expected to be heard on May 1, Phillip Rizzo said, with a trial date currently set for June 8.
The Rizzos have an above-ground pool, installed in 2023, which accommodates their wheelchair-bound adult son, AJ.
The sewer pipeline was installed in 1959, pre-dating the houses on the land. Rizzo said communication from the utility over the easement was extremely minimal until a few years ago.
“Why are we proactively clearing 29 residents’ properties for something that hasn’t happened in 65 years?” he said of a possible pipe malfunction. “And if it does, you wouldn’t clear all 29 properties. You would attack the issue where it was. There’s so many red flags, I can’t even get my head around it.”
He noted that the pipeline continues north, crossing under the 405 Freeway at one point.
Clark Stephens points Tuesday to where his property line runs along Rhone Lane in Huntington Beach.
(James Carbone)
“We’re not arguing that this isn’t critical infrastructure,” Rizzo said. “It is. We’re not arguing they don’t need to get to it if there’s an emergency. They will. We’re just saying, ‘Why are we proactively removing?’ You’re not tearing up the 405 just in case.”
Cabral responded that what O.C. San is doing in other locations doesn’t matter.
“Orange County Sanitation District has easements throughout Orange County, and we are actively working on our easement program as a whole,she said. “This just happens to be one of the areas where we had maintenance crews that were going out and being impacted and could not access the locations that they needed to.
“We had to select which vehicles could go back there, based on the space that was available, because of these fences that were falling over or that had reached or expanded into our easement.”
A fence runs on an alley behind Rhone Lane in Huntington Beach on Tuesday.
(James Carbone)
The Miller-Holder Rhone Lane Sewer Easement Cleanup Project was contracted to MetroCell Construction, Inc. last year for about $2.8 million. The cleanup work on the properties that O.C. San has agreements with is expected to be completed by December.
Beresford said the court case should have played out before any demolition began, adding that he believes O.C. San is overstepping its bounds.
“An easement is access,” he said. “That’s what the gates are for. You have access. They want fee simple [ownership] — they want to possess it — and that’s not how it works.”
Other property owners also wait for their backyards to be transformed. Clark and Kathy Stephens, who signed the agreement with the utility, have little more than a covered shed that will be lost besides the space.
But Clark Stephens, who has been living on Rhone Lane for 40 years, said he resents the fact that the footing of the fence to be installed will intrude on his property by more than a foot.
“I feel like I have leadership in this county that doesn’t have what it takes to be fair to their members,” Stephens said. “I pay my taxes every year. I’ve avoided the easement, I take care of it for them. I’ve mowed the lawn. If something happens on the back side of that fence, I go out and clean it up. I guess I resent the heavy-handed approach that they’re taking toward us.”
Kathy Stephens of Huntington Beach walks on train tracks behind her property on Rhone Lane on Tuesday. She said she has experienced drug dealing and other illegal activities there, and she is worried that it could get worse.
(James Carbone)
Frank Clarke, who is part of the litigation, lives further south on Rhone Lane. The 81-year-old bought the house in 1971. Two years later, he put in a pool for $5,000.
He said that the pool has been used through generations, including currently by his great-grandson. But now he’s watching the progress as the contractors will be moving down the street.
“I came home one day, and I saw water running down the street,” he said. “I figured somebody either had their sprinkler on or was draining their pool or whatnot, but there was a hose that came behind and into the alley. A day or two later, I come by and there’s a big blue dumpster with all of these chunks of broken concrete in there.
“I was with my wife and I said, ‘Here they come.’ They’ve actually done it. One down, and how many more to go?”
Cabral understands the situation is difficult but maintains that O.C. San needs unfettered access to the easement.
“I feel bad when I’m talking to these residents … [but] with all due respect, the responsibility was negligent in these situations,” she said. “Maybe not the ones who live there today, but way back when. They knew that this was the situation, and some of them chose to put in permanent structures, knowing that it wasn’t allowed.”