Ranch Officials decry board of supervisors’ vote, say traffic will increase on 101 Freeway, Malibu and Kanan Dume roads, and voice concerns over pollution to Malibu creek and lagoon.
By P.G. O’Malley/Special to The Malibu Times
The Ventura Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 on Dec. 19 to certify the controversial supplemental environmental impact report (SEIR) for Ahmanson Ranch, paving the way for ground-breaking, which officials for the Ahmanson Land Co. now project will occur sometime early in 2004.
The vote came despite concerns expressed by Assemblywoman Fran Pavley about traffic and by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl about perchlorate contamination from the Rocketdyne Santa Susana field laboratory-and despite the urging of former Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Director Carol Browner, who suggested the supervisors should do more testing to determine the degree and source of any contamination of the Ahmanson property. The supervisors also ignored a stern reminder from the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board that it considered the SEIR inadequate regarding effects of both perchlorate contamination and sediment from eight years of grading on Malibu creek and lagoon.
Ahmanson Land Co. attorney Steve Weston expressed satisfaction with the vote, as did Ahmanson President Guy Gniadek.
“The project has been exhaustively studied,” Gniadek said. “We feel it’s been fully reviewed. Now we will turn our attention toward the permits.”
But Heal the Bay staff scientist Shelley Luce, who testified at a series of county hearings leading up to the vote, predicted dire consequences for Malibu Creek from sediment, stormwater pollution and golf course pesticides, which will be making their way into water “wildlife depend on and people use for recreation.” Luce forecasted that Heal the Bay will be involved in “the continuing struggle to make sure that this development doesn’t get built and this land is preserved as open space as it should be.”
In making its decision about perchlorate found in Ahmanson well No. 1, the board relied on the opinion of Ventura County staff who insisted there was no way that contaminant, which is associated with rocket fuel, could reach the ranch property from the Rocketdyne testing facility, two miles northwest. In doing so the board dismissed suggestions from a team of experts assembled by Rally to Save Ahmanson Ranch, who urged the supervisors to consider the possibility that deep, subsurface ground water could indeed migrate from Rocketdyne to Ahmanson, and deal with the contamination by ordering the well in question be taken out of service.
“It’s irreprehensible,” said Kuehl about the board’s decision. “The supervisors demonstrated their insensitivity to the people who are going to live in those homes, to the effects of traffic on their neighbors and to fouling the waters in Malibu.”
Kuehl, along with Heal the Bay scientists, was concerned that perchlorate from the Ahmanson well would logically travel down Malibu Creek, through the lagoon, into the ocean at Surfrider Beach.
Despite pleas from Kuehl, Pavley and the communities of Thousand Oaks, Calabasas and Malibu, the board refused to order an updated study of traffic on the 101 Freeway or surface street alternatives. A week before, Malibu Mayor Jeff Jennings had argued that the Ahmanson project would push traffic off the 101 Freeway onto already overloaded Malibu Canyon Road and Pacific Coast Highway. In fact, updated Los Angles County traffic projections indicate that due to changes in commuting patterns, traffic on Malibu Canyon Road and Kanan Dume Road was underestimated in the original 1992 environmental impact report for the development.
In a press conference after the board vote, Chad Griffin, campaign manager for Rally to Save Ahmanson Ranch, noted the project must still secure permits from a variety of state and federal agencies including the water quality control board, and that his organization would be working closely with these agencies “to make sure they have whatever information they require.” Griffith also suggested the group would likely join any one of a number of lawsuits expected to be filed against Ventura County by the city of Los Angeles, the city of Calabasas, and the state attorney general’s office.
“Having seen the way the supervisors voted today, it’s very clear why the citizens of Ventura County passed SOAR,” said Griffin, referring to the Ventura County initiative that gives residents a direct vote on development. Griffin also acknowledged Mary Wiesbrock, executive director of Save Open Space, which has been fighting the Ahmanson project for more than 10 years.
“We have to continue to fight Washington Mutual,” Wiesbrock said, “to save Malibu Creek, to insure our air quality and to preserve what’s left of open space in the Santa Monica Mountains.”
“Rally to Save Ahmanson Ranch is not going away,” Griffin insisted. “Just as Mary Wiesbrock has been here for the last 10 years, we will be standing here with her for the next 10 if that’s what it takes.”
In a press conference issued after the board of supervisors’ vote, Washington Mutual described the board of supervisors’ decision as “a clear repudiation of the hype and hysteria generated by a small, but vocal group of opponents.”