The city is preparing to present the state water board with an alternative to the regional water board’s plan for a wastewater treatment facility in the broader Civic Center area.
By Olivia Damavandi / Assistant Editor
In the wake of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board’s decision to ban septic systems in central and eastern Malibu, the city’s Public Works Commission held a special meeting at city hall last week to discuss an alternative wastewater treatment plan for the broader Civic Center area.
The regional board last month voted to implement the prohibition, due to its assessment that septic systems are the major cause of pollution in Malibu’s watershed. The State Water Resources Control Board must still approve the ban before it can be enacted. The city will present its alternative plan to the state board at a public hearing within the next six months, along with results from as many as five water quality tests, which the city says will indicate that septic systems may not be the chief polluters.
“We have to get the results from the rest of the studies,” Public Works Commissioner Laura Rosenthal said Monday in a phone interview. “I know some of them won’t be done for six or eight months, or up to a year. But I know the city is trying to get preliminary results so we can make the most informed decision. The last thing we want to do is spend money on something that won’t solve the problem.”
The Public Works commissioners, including Rosenthal and Lou La Monte-both of whom are candidates in the April 13 Malibu City Council election-voiced support for the alternative plan, which would charge 110 residential parcels $400 to $500 per month, and 25 business parcels $6,800 to $17,000 per month to help finance a smaller $30.8 million centralized wastewater treatment facility that would handle up to 240,000 gallons per day and could be constructed in phases.
The first phase would involve installing a wastewater treatment system (capable of treating 190,000 gallons per day) by 2015 for the central core of the Civic Center area where the commercial properties and the highest potential users of a new wastewater treatment system are located. These properties also are in close proximity to Malibu Creek. (The location of the wastewater treatment facility has not yet been determined, but the city is considering two undeveloped properties: the Wave parcel, located behind the Malibu Courthouse and Malibu Library, and the La Paz property, located on Civic Center Way just south of the Malibu Library).
The second phase would expand the wastewater treatment system (adding 50,000 gallons per day) by 2018 to include homes in Serra Retreat, where the city states residential properties have a potential to impact water quality in Malibu Creek.
In addition, Malibu Colony homes and two commercial zones along the east side of Malibu Creek and adjacent to Pacific Coast Highway would be required by city ordinance to install disinfection treatments to their existing septic systems by 2018.
“It was really good to be able to assess what is best for the city, and by that I mean to clean the water and to get things moving so that we can start being in control of our destiny and not having these outside agencies dictating what we must do,” Rosenthal said of the meeting.
The septic ban approved by the regional water board plan includes an end to future permitting of septic systems in the commercial areas of the Civic Center and the stretch of Pacific Coast Highway from Serra Road to Sweetwater Canyon, as well as the residential areas of Malibu Colony, Malibu Road, Serra Retreat, Sweetwater Mesa and the Malibu Knolls. Current septic systems in those areas would have to be phased out within five years, and the regional board could issue fines of up to $10,000 per day or $100 per gallon of wastewater discharged to those who do not comply.
Under the regional board’s plan, the city projects that 425 residential parcels would have to pay between $400 and $500 per month, and 45 business parcels would have to pay between $6,800 and $17,000 per month to help finance an estimated $52 million centralized wastewater treatment facility capable of treating 600,000 gallons per day. However, the city says there are “technical feasibility issues” with the board’s prohibition plan. One such issue is that the available percolation area may not be sufficient to disperse the large quantity of treated wastewater.
City Manager Jim Thorsen this week highlighted the importance of an affordable, feasible wastewater management plan by referencing the 21-year-old septic ban in Los Osos, a central coast town in San Luis Obispo County.
“Los Osos is another site similar to Malibu, where there was a septic prohibition put in place in 1988,” Thorsen said Monday in a phone interview. “To date, they still don’t have a sewer system. To date, I don’t believe anybody’s been fined up there. It kind of supports the fact that if you don’t have residential and commercial property owners buying into a system, you’re going to have a tough time getting approval from them. That’s why we want to move forward with ours.”