City officials believe that local environmental groups unfairly target the city with lawsuits for water quality issues that are not entirely the city’s fault.
By Olivia Damavandi / Staff Writer
Malibu’s greatest asset-its natural beauty-has made it a world famous destination but, with its development, it has also become a prime target for environmental lawsuits.
The city since 1999 has spent a total of $9 million on legal battles, most of which are environmentally related. The majority, filed by environmental group Santa Monica Baykeeper, claim the city has not taken adequate measures to clean up its polluted beaches and creeks, which have been continually cited among the most contaminated in the state.
“Everyone knows Malibu, and everyone goes there because it’s so beautiful,” Santa Monica Baykeeper Attorney Tatiana Gaur said last week in a telephone interview. “But it has all these violations of water quality standards on beaches visited by tens of thousands of visitors each month.
“Malibu has never dealt with its storm- and wastewater issues,” Gaur continued. “It’s a public health violation. That’s clearly the driving force behind the lawsuits.”
Baykeeper alone has filed three lawsuits against the city within the past two years. One, filed jointly with the National Resource Defense Council in 2007, to date has cost the city $150,000, and accuses Malibu and Los Angeles County of violating state law by continually discharging contaminated water into Malibu Creek and polluting the watershed from Latigo Point to Mugu Lagoon, which the plaintiffs say is a state-designated area of special biological significance.
However, city officials believe they are doing the best they can to meet all requirements to address water quality issues. They say the multiple lawsuits are preventing them from moving forward with plans to build wastewater and stormwater treatment facilities in the Civic Center, an area comprised of many businesses that utilize septic systems (the entire city of Malibu uses septic systems, having successfully fought attempts for a sewer line to be built here years ago). The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board in April cited many of those businesses for violating wastewater discharge permit requirements.
In addition, Mayor Andy Stern believes Baykeeper is using the lawsuits as a publicity tactic.
“Malibu gets a lot of press, it’s a sexy target,” Stern said Monday in a telephone interview. “If you sue Los Angeles County or Calabasas no one cares, but if you sue Malibu you make headlines.
“There’s also a perception that Malibu is a rich city, which it’s not,” Stern continued. “It’s a city with rich people.”
At the time the 2007 lawsuit by Baykeeper and NRDC was filed, the cities of Agoura Hills, Calabasas and Westlake County, among nearly two dozen others in L.A. County, were also in violation of the California Water Code and discharged wastewater containing illegal amounts of bacteria into the Santa Monica Bay. But while the other cities received notices of violation with potential fines from the Regional Water Quality Control Board, Malibu was the only city sued, Stern said.
Baykeeper attorney Gaur acknowledged that Malibu is not responsible for all the pollution on its beaches, but said, “Just because it’s not responsible for everything doesn’t mean it is responsible for nothing. Nobody can argue with that.”
The fact that other cities have contributed to Malibu’s pollution has thus created another debate: whether or not Malibu should have to front the entire bill to implement a wastewater treatment facility in the Civic Center.
“That’s something I can’t address,” Gaur said. “If they [City of Malibu officials] think others are causing the pollution, it’s not our [Baykeeper’s] job to go tell Calabasas to pay Malibu.”
Gaur said that Baykeeper has targeted Malibu rather than the other cities because of its continual water quality violations and the absence of a centralized wastewater treatment facility.
In December of 2008, Baykeeper filed a second lawsuit against the city over the La Paz property, the Civic Center parcel on which the city aims to build a wastewater treatment facility. The suit claims La Paz’s city-approved environmental impact report fails to evaluate environmental impacts associated with flooding, water quality and storm water runoff in the area. The proposed development is pending certification by the California Coastal Commission. To date, the city has spent $21,449 on the suit, which will be reimbursed by the project developer.
Baykeeper in April served its third and most recent lawsuit against the city, claiming the city-approved Legacy Park Project violates state law failing to meet water quality standards and by failing to adequately treat wastewater generated in the Civic Center area, though it would treat stormwater. The suit has thus far cost the city $8,278.
“We go to implement a wastewater treatment facility at La Paz; they [Baykeeper] sue us from doing that,” Stern said. “Then they sue us for attempting to treat stormwater at Legacy Park. If they think their lawsuits are somehow helping to clean up the water, then they are delusional.”
While Gaur said the lawsuits are “forcing them [the City of Malibu] to fix the problem,” City Attorney Christi Hogin believes they are counterproductive.
“I don’t believe that water is ever cleaned in a courtroom,” Hogin said last week in a telephone interview. “Money shouldn’t be going into the fight, it should be going into the solution.”