Much more to learn

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Having watched the recent Regional Water Quality Control Board hearing TV broadcast, and successfully resisted a desire to smash the monitor and otherwise calmed a little, I can now offer what I consider to be a mature view of matters pollution-wise. The present Regional Board hammerlock on Malibu is just the beginning of a protracted hearing process that will wend its way over months up to the State Water Resources Board if not beyond. Shorn of the problems of notice, the not particularly helpful to downright annoying objections of the concerned but uninformed civilian speakers pro and con, and the somewhat questionable but nevertheless issue-focusing presentations of various consultants, the hearing has set the stage for a more meaningful one in the future at the Regional Board level. At least one can hope.

The City’s alternative plan of a small treatment plant and septic-system disinfection offered at the hearing was premature as indeed any plan would have been. As Councilmember Sibert indicated, the present need is to define the problem, to bridge the intellectual gap between “bad” report cards and wet-behind-the-ears solutions. At the forefront of the City’s efforts should now be forthright monitoring and review through workshops, the studies of pathogen occurrence and “mounding” in progress. Would the studiers consent to such workshops? If so, good; if not, we still have blameworthiness going for us.

Don Michael