Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith denied a lawsuit by environmental activists opposed to the plan to recontour the Malibu Lagoon. Goldsmith’s ruling likely means the California State Parks project will go forward at the beginning of summer in 2012, barring further legal challenges. The project was scheduled to begin on June 1 of this year, but Goldsmith issued a stay delaying the project after several environmental groups filed a petition for a write of mandate against the project.
The project’s opponents believe the lagoon recovery plan, which was slated to begin in June, is destructive and that the wetlands preserve can repair itself over time.
Project supporters include local environmental groups such as Heal the Bay, which say the idea that the lagoon can repair itself over time ignores science, and that the marshland must be rehabilitated before the lagoon becomes irreparable, choked by water flow blockage and years of upstream pollution and depletion of oxygen.
The California State Parks project was scheduled to begin on June 1 of this year, but San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith issued a stay delaying the project. Should Goldsmith allow the project to proceed, bulldozers that will be used to dredge and recontour the lagoon would not begin work until next summer.