While Malibu is absent from the recent public hearing on the supplemental EIR for Ahmanson Ranch, environmentalists and the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board express concerns about the development.
By P. G. O’Malley /Special to The Malibu Times
It was standing room only last week for the final of two scheduled public hearings on the Supplement Environmental Impact Report (SEIR) for Ahmanson Ranch, the 3,050-home community and golf course planned north of Malibu near Las Virgenes Road and the 101 Freeway.
A hundred and fifty people jammed the ground floor hearing room in the County of Ventura’s Administration Building and listened to representatives from government agencies and local communities object to inadequacies in the revised EIR for the first phase of the project. In contrast, a small minority of local citizens spoke in favor of the report.
The question-Where was Malibu?-circled among city representatives from Thousand Oaks to Calabasas. Environmentalists present were clearly vexed that the city hadn’t sent a representative to the hearing, having long identified Malibu as at the receiving end of an array of negative downstream effects they associate with the project, from sediment in Malibu Creek to pollution at Surfrider Beach.
This is the second time Malibu has been absent from a major hearing on the Ahmanson development. According to newly installed Mayor Jeff Jennings, Malibu is taking the same tack with the current hearings on the Supplemental EIR as it did when absent from an informational hearing in Aug. 2001, settling on “four or five pages” of written comment to emphasize the city’s concerns about traffic and water quality issues.
Much of the public testimony addressed to the six-person Ventura County Environmental Report Review Committee on May 1 stressed the need for a new study to supplement what many community and civic critics consider out-dated traffic data on state and county roads serving the project, which they say grossly underestimates gridlock on the Ventura Freeway.
Opponents to development were heartened by a letter from the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB). The letter stated concerns about what environmental organizations such as Heal the Bay have long claimed, that the Ahmanson Land Co. has not adequately addressed a variety of water quality issues. The board is a state agency that has jurisdiction in both Los Angeles and Ventura counties and through its permit process effectively has veto power over development projects.
In a letter to the committee, the RWQCB’s staff director, Dennis Dickerson requested the committee extend the public comment period on the Supplemental EIR, which closed with the May 1 hearing, presumably to give the agency time to review a revised water quality report promised by the developers. As of Monday, Dickerson said he had not received a copy of that report, which Ventura County planners indicated had been submitted by the Ahmanson Land Co. on April 29.
Dickerson called for more specific information on the developer’s short-term plans to dispose of sewage through the Las Virgenes Municipal Water Districts’ Tapia reclamation facility in Malibu Canyon.
“We are concerned about how Ahmanson intends to handle the shoulder periods,” Dickerson told The Malibu Times on Monday, referring to months when rainwater can affect creek disposal.
Ahmanson has long claimed that it will actually buy reclaimed water from the Tapia facility to use for parks and open spaces, including the development’s two golf courses. Project spokesperson Tim McGarry was optimistic about meeting the water quality issues raised in Dickerson’s letter.
“We’re working to address all the board’s water quality concerns,” said McGarry.
Presumably, Dickerson’s request for an extension of the comment period will be addressed at the continuation of the hearing scheduled for May 8, when the committee will hear the last of public testimony it was unable to receive last week. Ventura County planner Dennis Hawkins suggested the committee has three options. It can direct the county planning staff to respond to the issues raised in the course of the comment period and bring back a revised draft. Or it can request additional information or more analysis, including directing specific questions to the staff and its consultant.