Southern California Edison will be permitted to continue using a lot at the corner of Stuart Ranch Road and Civic Center Way to stage equipment as it undergoes emergency repair work to harden Malibu’s electrical infrastructure in the hopes of avoiding future wildfires—despite serious environmental concerns over the utility company’s mishandling of the property.
The land, owned by a company called Surfrider Partners, had largely sat dormant for more than a decade, while undergoing occasional brush clearance, according to information provided by Malibu city staff. Following the Woolsey Fire, SCE took out a lease on the property to help facilitate thousands of emergency repairs that stretch from Sycamore Canyon in the west to Topanga Canyon in the east and from the Ventura (101) Freeway in the north to the ocean.
On Monday night, it was revealed Edison, in violation of the terms of its conditional use permit, mixed powdered cement into the top eight to 12 inches of all but approximately 0.4 acres on the southern portion of the 7.5-acre lot, in an effort to “stabilize” the gravel during last winter’s heavy rain, and in the apparent hope to make the lot a semi-permanent fixture in Malibu. That was in addition to the approximately 4,500 tons of gravel already permitted on the site.
“The original intention of the applicant, SCE, per their agreement with the property owner, was to return the site to its original condition; however, the owner has requested that the fence and gravel remain in order to facilitate the future use of the site as a parking lot for this type of work and temporary events,” City of Malibu assistant planner Justine Kendall told the Malibu Planning Commission during its Monday, Aug. 19 meeting. “The soil was stabilized by treating it with cement and mixing the top eight to 12 inches with a cement mixture; that information was not included in the submitted plans … The property owner has requested to retain the cement-treated soil as well.”
That request was soundly denied; in fact, planning commissioners spent more than an hour debating exactly how best to ensure the property is returned to its original state—whether or not that state can be proven to have, at one time, been a wetland.
SCE first began use of the lot after an over-the-counter permit was expedited by city staffers due to the emergency nature of the project, according to Kendall.
“Following the fire last November, SCE—Southern California Edison—identified the need for urgent and critical infrastructure upgrades and repairs to reduce the risk of wildfire caused by their facilities and equipment,” Kendall explained. “The work was determined to be urgent enough to constitute an emergency and the permit process was expedited to facilitate the completion of the work prior to the start of fire season.”
From the moment the permit was approved, there were some in town raising concerns over their belief a wetland existed on the property prior to the lot being created—but, from the perspective of the commission, those concerns were too little, too late, with emergency repairs on the line.
“My dilemma is that, from a perspective of being an environmentally sensitive community, we have screwed this thing up from the get-go,” Commission Chair Steve Uhring said near the top of the hearing.
“I’m not a biologist,” he continued, describing how he himself has witnessed water “ponding” on the property from the vantage point of his home. “It’s worth taking a real serious look as to whether that is or is not a wetland.”
However, Uhring also expressed the conflict shared by the rest of the commission—Edison’s repair work is too critical for the commission to interfere.
“I am not going to be the person who votes against something that’s going to make the city safer … There are things that are going on that are going to make the city safer, and I want them to finish their job. Because if we don’t, I think we’re screwing everybody in Malibu—that’s a bad thing to do.”
The lot will continue to be used by SCE until the critical repair work is completed or until Dec. 31, 2019—whichever comes first.
As for remediation, it was decided the lot should “be restored to its pre-project condition to the satisfaction of the planning director after a detailed remediation plan, prepared by an expert chosen by the city at the applicant’s expense, is posted on the city’s website for a 30-day public comment period to which the city and SCE will respond and the plan is reported at a Planning Commission meeting,” according to meeting minutes.