Like New Orleans and the Mississippi River that busted through its levies when Katrina hit, the Lumber Yard, in the middle of the Malibu Creek floodplain, flooded in the 1995 50-Year flood. It was buried under two feet of water. Despite the rip-rap barriers that were placed on the Creek’s west side to hold back flooding, the Cross Creek shopping area was inundated, causing all the chemicals from all the parking lots to wash into the Creek and ultimately, Surfrider Beach and its world famous surf zone. Not only did the barrier malfunction, but so did the septic tanks. Marmalade Restaurant’s septic failure caused the closure of Surfrider Beach in June of 1997, without a flood!
The reason we purchased the Chili Cook-Off property is because it is supposed to be “a cornerstone to cleaning up the creek and Surfrider Beach.” The buildings in this area are ill-placed. They ought to be placed in an area out of harm’s way. The lumberyard and its associated hardware store should move to west Malibu now, the area most needing it.
Working toward removing the polluters from the Civic Center area would be a positive direction the City Council could go in. There is possibly $10 million available for acquisition of the lumberyard, but rather than pursue these funds, the City Council is about to make another haphazard decision and lease the lumberyard for 37 years.
Well, you Malibu surfers, residents and shoreline businesses east of the pier, I guess you’re just going to have to bite the diseases this city council is going to ignore again and send your way for the next two to four years, while they debate how to get us out of this mess that they are getting us into. Oh yeah, of course they’re going to tell you that their “Engineering Gods” are going to fix everything, no doubt, and I am sure a bunch of ignorant and blind-faith types are going to believe them. A cost-benefit analysis showing the community both options would be the proper approach to this situation.
Bob Purvey