This is Malibu’s only local daily news – on the radio – FM 97.5 in Western Malibu – streaming at www.radiomalibu.net
Topanga Canyon Blvd remains closed today.
Caltrans engineers say gigantic machinery is still removing truckloads of dirt … and huge boulders … from the lower three miles of the canyon road.
Topanga canyon will be closed at PCH … up to Grandview … for at least the rest of today.
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Malibu is shaking off the effects of strong Santa Ana winds over the weekend.
Trees fell down… power went out in patchy locations … it was a series of big blows.
A house on Busch Drive had a large tree come down on it .. soem serious damage there for the insurance adjustors.
And an enormous eucalyptus tree fell onto the street on Filaree Heights …. Above Malibu high school.
Wires went down all over town.
In the mountains … the KBUU transmitter was damaged.
Its heavy support pole pushed crooked by repeat wind gusts in the 60s and 70s on Saturday.
It’s fixed.
The national weather service says we will get continued winds out of the mountains today … but gusts will top out at 45 miles an hour.
Of course … that was the prediction all weekend and we got peak wind gusts of 72 mph … and frequent wind gusts above 60.
The big deal today will be heat … with high temperatures near 80 possible in the Santa Monica Mountains.
Rain is possible Thursday and maybe again Monday.
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Major news from down the coast on Saturday.
An agreement has been reached between the city of Santa Monica and the federal government … a consent agreement to close the Santa Monica airport in 11 years.
It’s the closest small plane airport to Malibu.
Santa Monica has been trying to shut down the airport since 1983 … and has been locked in several federal and state lawsuits.
Within a few months … the 4900 foot long runway Will be shortened to 3500 feet … with a safety buffer to be installed at either end.
That will bring the runway closer to recommended design ….
But it will also mean an end to much of the corporate jet use.
An Irvine based charter jet company says it still plans to start a daily passenger service from Santa Monica Airport in early February.
JetSuite has plans to send a 30-passenger jet from northern San Diego County to Santa Monica … and then on to San Jose … every morning … four times a week.
The return flight would be every afternoon.
Weekend flights would go to Las Vegas.
Shortening the runway will apparently shorten Jetsuite’s plans.
As for the airport site … Santa Monica plans to build a giant park at the airport site.
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You are listening to the latest news from Radio Malibu … 97.5 K B U. ((( time ))))
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Most Malibu residents are unaware that there is a major radioactive and chemical contamination site just 15 miles north of us in Malibu.
The Santa Susana Field Laboratory was a rocket test site … and in 1959 a nuclear reactor that was located there at suffered a partial nuclear meltdown.
Radioactive and chemical trash is scattered around up there … on the old Rocketdyne test site … now owned by Boeing.
Cleanup of the site was supposed to be completed this year … under a deadline set up a decade ago.
The Los Angeles daily news reports that the cleanup project has been repeatedly delayed by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control.
The cleanup won’t even begin until this year or next.
Boeing, NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy are responsible to clean up the radioactive and highly dangerous chemical debris.
A planned groundwater cleanup could take decades, even centuries, to complete, the department says.
The Committee to Bridge the Gap is a nonprofit that has worked on cleanup issues at the field lab for 37 years.
And they are unhappy.
“They promised it would be cleaned up by 2017, and it isn’t even starting by then” says
the committee’s Dan Hirsch … now a professor and expert on nuclear waste at U C Santa Cruz.
“And now they’re saying it won’t even start until perhaps 2018, if it happens at all” he tells the L A Daily News.
There were 10 small nuclear reactors up there during the 1950s … none of them cleaned up.
Rocket motors were tested and there is extremely dangerous residue and spills all over the mountaintop test center …. which is just on the north side of Calabasas.
It sits next to the Malibu Creek watershed.
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A Malibu mansion … overlooking the pier and Civic Center and once owned by a corrupt African politician … is back in private hands and apparently getting flipped.
The mansion on Sweetwater Mesa is perhaps one of the most prominent pieces of Malibu real estate … on the point right above the Adamson House.
There’s a three-hole golf course, a swimming pool, ponds and a tennis court on the grounds.
The mansion was seized by the federal government from Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the playboy son of the president of Equatorial Guinea.
Obiang used money that was pilfered from his impoverished home country to pay for the house.
Two Malibu investors bought the mansion from the feds last year for $38 million … according to website called The Real Deal.
Obiang is now on trial in France on corruption charges … after he allegedly bought palatial Parisian properties with money stolen from his native country.
The mansion is being remodeled and is expected to be sold for a price way uphill from the 38 million dollars it was worth as surplus government property.
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Traffic …
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Weather for the Malibu ….
It will be (((( sunny breezy and 73 )))) degrees today on the beach … (((( 77 )))) inland.
Winds will be strong . … coming over the mountains.
Wins of 10 to 20 and gusts up to 30 miles per hour this afternoon.
Sunset tonight is at (((( 5:18 )))).
The International Space Station will be visible as it flies over Malibu … in the twilight this evening.
It will appear to the north northwest at 5:59 … and be visible for four minutes,
Tonight… expect it to be ((( mostly clear )))) tonight … a low of (((( 53 )))) on the beach … down to (((( 43 )))) in the canyons.
Tomorrow should be (((( clear … 79 for a high )))).
Right now … it’s (((( 62 )))) at Trancas.
(((( 62 )))) in upper Malibu Canyon.
And it’s (((( 55 ))) at Civic center Los Angeles.
In the ocean … it’s (((( 54 )))) degrees in the water at Zuma Beach.
The lifeguards say the waves today are (((( 3 to 5 )))) feet high ….
(((( Modest WNW swell. Deep AM high tide. Offshore wind in the AM. ))))
Those are (((( fair )))) surfing conditions …. according to the lifeguards.
((((( High tide is 10:20 this morning.
Low tide at 10:20.
Another high tide …a minor tide … at 11:40 tonight. ))))
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