In a recent Malibu City Council meeting there was much discussion about the MBC proposal regarding the sale of the Chili Cook-off site in the civic center and its use as a sewer plant with some park land. Our mayor, Ken Kearsley, was quoted as saying it wasn’t a sewer plant. Well, I believe it could be used as an aromatic home for waste products from all the toilets in the new developments. So I went to my dictionary and looked up the definition of a sewer. Mr. Mayor, a SEWER is what we have, plain and simple: one flushes a toilet and the waste goes down a pipe situated in an unstable area and ends up in the plant for digestion, separation, purification and then the excess water is evaporated on a dry day or stored. The water table in some areas is only 6 feet beneath the surface and is subject to liquefaction.
By the way, Mr. Mayor, have you ever seen a sewer plant reduced in size? Tapia has grown seven-fold and has had many breakdowns, spillages, black fly infestations, algae overgrowth, etc. Will this happen in Malibu? I am not against anyone building on their property with proper permits, but why aren’t the proposed civic center developments treating waste products on their own land as the majority of other landowners are doing? Septic systems are the most efficient systems available. Best of all, when a septic system breaks down, the neighbors are not affected as when massive central sewer plants fail, as in the Laguna Beach breakdown, which took weeks to repair and clean up.
I was one of the leaders in the fight against the LA County sewer plans for Malibu, which would have been a monumental consumption of time (up to seven years in the building of it), disruption and costing millions of dollars to our residents. Thus, we became a city to protect the Malibu “Way of Life.” Mr., Mayor, are you ready to give up our lifestyle for development? Just asking the question!
Frank Basso