After facing scrutiny over the secrecy of plans to remove Malibu’s aging Rindge Dam, California State Parks officials will make their first public presentation next week to city officials and residents with plans to remove the dam at a cost that could top $100 million.
Representatives from a technical committee of State Parks and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will present options for complete or partial removal of the dam at Monday’s Malibu City Council meeting. State Parks views the dam’s removal as necessary to open up a key migration point for the endangered steelhead trout species, but some Serra Retreat residents who live downstream from the dam have expressed concerns about its removal.
“Dam projects are tricky because they’re usually big structures and they involve a lot of interests,” State Parks environmental scientist Jamie King said Monday in a telephone interview. “They’re costly and they involve a lot of regulatory agencies… there are a lot of planning efforts that have to be looked at for Rindge Dam.”
State Parks stirred up controversy earlier this year when a Serra resident was barred from attending a technical meeting regarding the project in February. Suzanne Goode, a senior ecologist with the California State Parks and Recreation Department, said the resident was asked to leave because she vilified and misrepresented the project in front of the Malibu City Council in 2012 and in letters to local media after attending a prior meeting of the committee.
King said an environmental report and feasibility study of the removal project would be ready in October.
Funding options and exact costs for any removal project will not be discussed during Monday’s presentation, King said, but $50- $100 million remains a “good” ballpark estimate.
Advocates for removal say the dam, which was built in 1926, is antiquated, unnecessary and blocks a migration point that would help revive the steelhead trout population.
But Serra Retreat residents fear removing the dam will unleash a flood of sediment into the nearby creek and recently overhauled Malibu Lagoon. Other opponents believe steelhead trout have never used the Malibu watershed as a migratory haven and are not native to the area.