Fishermen find fish belly up north of Malibu Lagoon Bridge.
By P. G. O’Malley/Special to The Malibu Times
Although last week’s spill of sewage from the Tapia Water Reclamation Facility in Malibu Canyon forced the closure of part of Malibu Creek State Park, both the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District insist there’s no relationship between the spill and mullet that recently went belly up in Malibu Lagoon.
“To the best of my knowledge,” said the water control board’s Melina Beck, “the two events are unrelated-the spill didn’t reach the lagoon.”
Beck was referring to the fact that much of Malibu Creek is dry this time of year and there would be no water to carry the sewage into the lagoon.
Randal Orton, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District Research Conservation Manager and a fish expert, also noted the timing is off-the dead fish were first reported two weeks before the spill by State Parks biologist Suzanne Goode at a meeting of the Malibu Creek Watershed Council. Orton said the mullet are a yearly occurrence in the lagoon where they come to breed when the water level is high.
Goode could not be reached for comment, but Malibu fisherman Frank Nielsen insisted photographs he took over the weekend from the Malibu Lagoon Bridge showed dead fish north of the bridge. Nielsen also reported a friend told him there were more, “over by the Adamson House.” Orton confirmed he reported the situation to the California Department of Fish and Game, which, so far as he knows, has not investigated.
“There are several possible causes of the dead fish,” Orton said. “One of the most probable is a small parasitic predator called ostracods, which were found in the lagoon at least once before when UCLA did a study in 1993.”
Norm Buehring, the water district’s director of resource conservation, also noted water district crews who have been monitoring the Malibu Creek streambed since the spill Sunday morning, Oct. 13, have found no evidence of dead crayfish in the upper creek or any other effect on aquatic life. The district insists water samples taken this past week at various points where there is water in the Malibu Creek streambed, including a pool above the Cross Creek Arizona crossing, indicate bacteria levels are at what is considered normal for both the stream and lagoon. Orton also said that district gauges show no increase of water levels in the lagoon, which he takes as further indication that none of the sludge-contamination reached the Malibu area.
Buehring confirmed the flow of sludge originated from “a quarter-size leak” in an 8-inch pressurized pipeline that delivers concentrated solids from the Tapia water reclamation plant near Cold Canyon Road to the district’s composting facility on Las Virgenes Canyon Road near Lost Hills Road. Tapia immediately shut down the flow of sludge, and crews diverted the aboveground flow into a temporary detention basin near the corner of Las Virgenes Road and Mulholland.
Additional sludge was caught in a natural storm drain that runs along the creek, but Buehring estimates between 1,000-2,000 gallons actually found its way into Las Virgenes Creek. To capture the contaminated water, water district crews set up a dam in Malibu Creek State Park, impounding the contaminated flow above the point where Las Virgenes and Malibu creeks join, and pumping it into vacuum trucks rushed to the site. The remaining flow, which was approximately 2 percent to 5 percent sludge, petered out in the creek channel, where district officials say the harmful bacteria will be filtered by the soil.
“Really concentrated sewage spilled into the creek,” said Heal the Bay scientist Shelly Luce.
The environmental organization happened to have a Stream Team onsite the day of the leak and supplied initial samples to the water quality control board.
“The samples we took indicated a high likelihood of people getting sick if they had contact with that water.”
Malibu Creek Park officials and water district crews moved quickly to quarantine the area along the creek, which is still closed to recreation use.
“We’re concerned that the park had to be closed to recreation,” said State Parks spokesperson Lynette Folk, who nonetheless expressed confidence in the water district’s cleanup.
Buehring indicated that, so far, there appears to be no reason for the leak in the sludge pipe.
“These types of Ductile iron pipes usually last 50 years. This one had been in place less than 10 years.”
The district has replaced the failed section of pipe and has sent it out for testing.
“We’ll want to see the final report from the water district on this,” said Blythe Ponek-Bacharowski, senior engineering geologist, who dispatched a water quality control board sampling team two days after the spill. “I want to know what they’re going to do to insure this doesn’t happen again.”
The Las Virgenes Water District Tapia water reclamation facility processes sewage from some 85,000 residents of the Malibu Creek Watershed, including Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Westlake, Hidden Hills, Oak Park and parts of Thousand Oaks. Its practice of recycling sewage sludge into compost is considered state-of-the-art in the municipal solid waste industry. The compost produced at the Rancho Las Virgenes Composting Facility is used mostly as a soil amendment and is available to water district customers for fertilizer.