Malibu property owners were put on notice at the City Council meeting Monday night–the 6,000 or so septic tanks, which trap and treat wastewater throughout the city, are going to be inspected–and property owners are going to be held accountable for repairing and maintaining their systems.
That’s the goal of an ambitious Wastewater Management Action Plan proposed by the city Building and Safety Department.
“Essentially, effective management of decentralized wastewater systems will enable Malibu to choose its own destiny,” states a council agenda note.
In an interview, building official Vic Peterson said, “What that means to me, is that if we don’t control our own waste management then the [state] Regional Water Quality Control Board or the [California] Coastal Commission will impose their own restrictive measures, which would interfere with our ability to make our own decisions.”
The city was pressured to come up with a workable septic management plan by state legislation passed last year (AB885), which took regulatory control of septic systems out of the hands of local governments and gave it to the state.
The concern is if Malibu doesn’t show it can oversee its septic systems, the city might be forced by the state to install underground sewage pipes hooked into other sewage systems in neighboring areas, which would make wastewater management more feasible for the state to manage. That was Los Angeles County’s plan before Malibu incorporated 10 years ago.
But, according to Peterson, sewers would ultimately end up dumping more effluents into the ocean. That, he said, is because septic tanks are more effective at trapping and treating effluents on site through a natural filtration process. He added that any water that finds its way into the ground and seeps out to the ocean is “hopefully high quality.”
Sewer system waste is gathered from all over the region and treated at one big plant, the Hyperion treatment facility in Redondo Beach. When that system fails, “and it does almost every year,” said Peterson, a large amount of wastewater and effluent gets dumped into the ocean. A ruptured septic tank is a small spill by comparison.
The criticism of septic tanks is they are not as durable as sewers and cannot be considered a permanent wastewater management system. Indeed, some septic tanks in Malibu date back 50 years or more. Many are hard to locate because they are not accounted for in early health department records. Few would measure up to standards of today’s codes. One aim of the wastewater action plan is to find those tanks and have them repaired or replaced if necessary.
The long-term goal is to implement an ongoing inspection plan for all decentralized wastewater systems in the city to ensure they become a permanent solution to wastewater management.
In other council matters, Mayor Joan House announced a donation to the city of more than 15 acres of land in Trancas by Dan Lufkin. The land is to be dedicated for parks and recreation. It will cost the city slightly more than $100,000 to pay off promissory notes that now encumber the land.
After nearly two hours of slide presentations, arguments and deliberation, the council upheld a Planning Commission recommendation to approve plans for a Zumirez Drive home that had been hotly contested by neighbors. A main objection of the neighbors was that the 4,689 square foot home planned by Agnes Itzhaki would impair their view of Zumirez Canyon.
However, it was pointed out in photographs that the homes of two neighbors overlooking the new home site were much larger and much more visible than the Itzhaki home would be. Photographs of story poles, used to illustrate the height and general configuration of the proposed house, showed the visible height of the house would be 10 feet lower than the maximum allowed by city ordinance, giving it a low profile. “It’s a regular B-2 bomber,” Councilmember Ken Kearsley said, in reference to the stealth airplane.
Another neighbor below the site complained hawks and owls would be driven from their nests in a tree near her home by the glare from glass windows of the Itzhaki home.
Still another concern was a patch of Plummer’s Mariposa lilies growing on the property. The building plans called for a 6-by-60-foot wall around the property to protect the lilies. An alternative plan would be to relocate the lilies.
The council voted to approve the plans with three modifications: The windows would be tinted to reduce glare, the lilies would be relocated and the wall to protect them dropped from the plans, and the garage roof would be lowered by at least 1 foot.
In a 3-2 vote, the council also rejected a proposed ordinance that would set up regulations and fees for preferential parking permits throughout the city. “The Coastal Commission would never approve preferential parking,” said Mayor House. Councilmember Jeff Jennings said preferential parking would be elitist and would “Bel-Air-ize” Malibu. But the council passed another ordinance that would ban overnight camping in a vehicle on any street in Malibu. This ordinance was sparked by complaints about a summer influx of overnight campers on Malibu Road. This ordinance (233) would ban overnight parking everywhere except in public campgrounds.
City Council calls public meeting on Local Coastal Plan
Longtime civic activist Ruth White stood before the City Council Monday night and called for a petition to be signed by every resident of Malibu “demanding our rights for self-governance.”
The petition is one of many ideas the council said it was looking for at a special meeting it has called to discuss the Local Coastal Plan for Malibu unveiled by the California Coastal Commission last month.
The meeting will take place next Monday, Oct. 15, at 6:30 p.m. in the Hughes Research Lab auditorium at 3011 Malibu Canyon Rd., where the council normally convenes.
All homeowners and neighborhood associations, civic groups and interested residents were urged to present their ideas to the Coastal Commission and to voice their grievances with the proposed Coastal LCP. The Coastal Commission’s LCP include changes in zoning designations that would add hotels and other visitor services in place of recreation facilities and low-density businesses. It would also add more beach accessways and more parking for beachgoers.