City of Malibu officials praised the preliminary results of a U.S. Geological Survey study indicating septic systems are not to blame for contamination of Malibu Lagoon and coastal waters. But the head of a local environmental group questions the study and timing of the USGS press release.
By Knowles Adkisson / The Malibu Times
Fecal indicator bacteria, or FIB, sometimes found in the Malibu Lagoon and coastal ocean waters of Malibu, may not be the result of human waste contamination, according to the preliminary results of a new U.S. Geological Survey study released last week Friday.
“Data collected for this study indicate that fecal indicator bacteria and human-specific Bacteroides, an indication of human fecal material, are high in samples from within onsite wastewater-treatment systems; however, they are generally absent in samples from wells, even though many of the sampled wells contain water having a wastewater history,” John Izbicki, research hydrologist for the USGS, said.
The water quality study by the USGS was partially funded by the city, and is among four other studies contracted by the city to dispute the assertions by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board that Malibu septic systems are the cause of bacterial contamination of the local watershed.
Malibu Mayor John Sibert called the results “a big step in the right direction.”
“What you get is a very strong indication [that] in the Civic Center area and along the lagoon, it’s certainly not the septic systems in the [Malibu] Colony” that are causing contamination, Sibert said.
Mark Gold, president of the environmental group Heal the Bay, has been critical of the city’s inability to curtail water contamination. He said he was surprised the USGS issued a press release when the full results of the study were not available. But Gold questioned drawing a broad conclusion that septic systems had no part in contamination solely from the study, which was based on samples taken in July 2009 and April 2010.
“Until I see the study, I find it hard to believe that that’s what the conclusion would be based on two small snapshots during a relatively dry year,” Gold said. “I just can’t imagine that the USGS would extrapolate that to all conditions, including the sort of critical storm conditions we saw this last December.”
Gold compared the more limited nature of the USGS study with a year-long study completed in 2004 by environmental consulting firm Stone Environmental, Inc. and paid for by the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission. That study found that nitrogen and bacteria from septic systems in the Civic Center area impacted Malibu Creek, Malibu Lagoon and ocean waters.
Sibert said the USGS results could only be judged based on the parameters of the study.
“If [new evidence] comes up and it looks different than this later, then that’s what happens,” Sibert said.
According to preliminary results of the study, scientists suspect possible sources of FIB in local coastal waters are from kelp accumulated on the beach, discharge from Malibu Lagoon to the ocean or movement of water from the lagoon through the sand berm separating the lagoon from the ocean. Scientists hope to know the exact source of the FIB in the near-shore ocean waters and the Malibu Lagoon once the study is complete.
In the meantime, the study could assist the city in its negotiations with the regional water board over a septic ban in the Civic Center area. The regional water board issued the ban in September last year for septic systems in the central and eastern areas of Malibu, which the state water board later upheld after the city appealed the ban.
Malibu City Manager Jim Thorsen has been conducting negotiations with regional water board Executive Officer Sam Unger for four months on a two-phase approach to wastewater treatment in the area. A preliminary agreement announced by Thorsen in March would require commercial properties in the Civic Center to cease using septic systems by 2015 and share the cost of building a central wastewater treatment facility, estimated to cost anywhere from $32 million to $52 million. Although not finalized, residential properties would be required to cease using septic systems by 2019.
Sibert said the results from the USGS study could provide valuable information to determine the boundaries of assessment districts that will have to be created to pay for the facility.