A ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled this Friday at Malibu Lagoon State Beach to mark the official completion of the Malibu Lagoon Restoration Project. Public officials including State Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) and Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) will speak at the event, which celebrates what proponents are calling a successful conclusion to the reported $7 million project.
The bureaucratic soap opera has witnessed legal injunctions to halt the project, disputes over scientific reports, protesters marching with picket signs and vitriolic public meetings where opponents loudly faced off against city and state officials.
A long history
State parks first struck up efforts to restore the lagoon in the 1980s, aiming to repair waterways the agency believed contained very little life and poor water quality after decades of degradation. The lagoon had been used as a dumping site for dirt beginning in the 1920s when workers built Pacific Coast Highway.
A 1983 project to reshape the lagoon’s three channels did little to fix things. Parks officials argued that the restoration effort had been done incorrectly, causing the accu- mulation of sediment and low oxygen levels in the water. The lagoon had been filled in during the 1970s and made into ball fields.
In 2010, restoration efforts were renewed.
“We seek to correct what was a flaw in the orientation of the channels [created by the state Department of Transportation in 1983],” California State Parks biologist Suzanne Goode said in 2010. “This lagoon is not healthy. It looks beautiful from the surface, and yes, there are teeming birds in the main channels of the lagoon, but in the mud in the back channels, there is very little life.”
But a core group of environmental groups and Malibu community members struck up a fight against the project, arguing that poor water quality in the lagoon was not a permanent state, and that the lagoon could repair itself over time. Opposition takes battle to court In December 2010, the Wetlands Defense Fund, along with two other environmental groups, filed suit against the California Coastal Commission challenging the commission’s October 2010 approval of the project.
A week before the project was to begin on June 1, 2011, a judge in San Francisco issued a temporary injunction staying the project until a hearing on its merits took place in October. Opponents took heart at the decision, but later that year the court rejected the environmental groups’ claims that the commission had not considered other, less invasive alternatives to the State Parks project.
The decision cleared the way for the project to begin in summer 2012.
Malibu City Council draws criticism
Though the project took place on California State Parks property, the Malibu City Council came under fire for more than a year for what opponents viewed as apathy toward the project.
At a heated April 2011 meeting, the council ruled out taking a stance opposing the project, despite each councilmember admitting to disagreeing with specifics of the plan. Project opponents frequently interrupted and jeered supporters and council members. An angry outburst by surfer Andy Lyon directed at Councilman John Sibert almost resulted in Lyon’s removal by Sheriff’s deputies.
The council changed course one year later, days before the April 2012 Malibu City Council elections, when it voted to oppose the project. The council’s unanimous vote alleged the state failed to adequately respond to questions the city had about environmental, public health and legal concerns related to the project.
The council’s symbolic opposition did not stop State Parks from starting on the project in June 2012, but a group of 30 protesters showed up in full force carrying signs opposing the project as passing motorists periodically honked in support. The protests dwindled over the next couple of days as the project proceeded.
Project draws out
Originally estimated to take four months, the project ended up stretching over twice that, with several permit extensions being granted along the way by the Coastal Commission.
The lagoon quietly reopened last month. Dotted with thousands of plastic flags to denote seedlings that have yet to become established, many have complained that the muddy landscape appears desolate on a recent overcast day. State Parks officials say the seedlings need time to grow.
Wendi Werner, a local activist long opposed to the project, recounted a recent visit to the park.
“[The water] looks murky and stagnant,” she said. “…It’ll never be the wild and natural place it was before.”
Those celebrating the project’s completion Friday, though, see it differently.
“This will be a day to celebrate a long and successful journey toward restoration and we are excited and pleased to share the beautiful results with everyone,” an invitation from State Parks said.
