The following letter was sent to Dennis Dickerson, executive director, Regional Water Quality Control Board. I speak as a biologist and trained observer involved with Malibu for more than 50 years.
Frustration with diminished quality of life has been the standard condition surfers and water sports enthusiasts have had to endure since my early days along the beach at Malibu in the 1950s. To endure continued discharge of treated sewage and huge flows of contaminated urban runoff, no matter how wonderful the claims for its quality, are beyond comprehension of those who enjoy even occasional water contact. We kill and alter the ecology with words and pictures that create false perceptions.
The Tapia Water Treatment Facility was located along Malibu Creek so that its waters would use the creek when it fails. It is a basic design flaw. The treatment facility should be moved and there should be no discharge of treated or untreated sewage waters to the creek ever. Never!
There should be no discharge of treated or other imported waters allowed into Malibu Creek. Water discharge to a sand and gravel filtration system (restored Tapia filtration ponds) to ground water that flows to the creek is still discharge to the creek, and it is destructive to the ecology down stream. Creek ecology will handle natural runoff volumes. God designed it that way. The stream or any designed low technology treatment facility crammed into a small area of the delta cannot handle excessive flow demands. There is not enough space, energy available to treat all of the runoff and to discharge the fresh water away from sensitive marine and estuary habitat areas.
Expensive fancy apparatus like Purizer, ozone, or chemical treatments will only occupy what was once important wetland or salt marsh habitat and hatchery and will never handle the volume of water and total pollutants that are required. They also continue the basic design flaw of our altered water systems that causes ecosystem failure-too much of a good thing.
Tapia and other water treatment systems must properly treat water and remove it from our Mediterranean ecosystem to discharge off shore, like Hyperion, however imperfect it is and however expensive.
In addition to the increased bacterial and chemical hazards introduced to the creek, lagoon and near shore environment, the volume of water imported to the area and discharged to creek changes the whole structure of ecology and succession for the various zones at Malibu. This is the typical result of the design of the water discharge systems along the coast of Southern California. The discharge design is flawed and causes considerable change in the ecology: dominance of exotic species and absence of species rapidly joining the categories of species at risk and species that are endangered. There is serious loss of habitat for species at risk and diminished quality and quantity of marine life in the littoral zone. We suffer a huge loss of diversity, and creatures once abundant are totally absent.
At Malibu Creek, Lagoon, and the littoral zone at Surfrider Beach State Park, waters are changed to be less saline and the mixing zone is shifted away from protected areas in estuary (lagoon) to the surf zone. Cause: too much water. As a result of our imported water we now call our poorly restored estuary a wetland. Wetlands are freshwater. Estuaries contain a variety of saline areas and large areas that are protected from wave action where species that are adapted to withstand changes in salinity may reproduce without exposure to pounding surf and high currents. These do not exist now. Water should be listed as a toxin; by its overabundance as well as its quality, it is a strong destructive force to the fragile desert, Mediterranean, and estuarine ecology.
We have managed to control water so that it remains at extremes-either too much or too little-and always poor. Pretty harsh on the little voiceless creatures of our damaged, diminished, poisoned habitat. The remnant of a poorly regarded local Malibu ecosystem.
It is essential to have proper and regular measurements to manage effectively. Measurements of water quality alone will not suffice. Species counts and bio mass must also be measured.
Please do not allow any discharge from Tapia at any time of the year to impact Malibu Creek and the fragile ecology that already suffers greatly from human activity. Use your offices to force developers away from critical habitat areas along Malibu Creek, Lagoon, and coastal near shore environments.
We need our estuaries as fish and invertebrate hatcheries, not some artificial low technology treatment areas that some engineer promises will remove soap and heavy metals from semi-pretreated urban runoff. We have wasted enough time and money on puff.
Our goal should be restored estuary, salt marsh, and productive hatchery that is continually verified by species counts. Not blue reflective ponds and the greenery of exotic species. Restore estuaries and measure success. No more waivers. No discharge to creek.
Ben Hamilton
Masters, Marine Biology