Residents of Carbon Mesa and Carbon Canyon remain in limbo with outdated water lines and bureaucratic stagnation
It’s one of those colossal bureaucratic quagmire-like conundrums that infuriates Malibuites because it significantly impedes fire victims’ efforts to rebuild their destroyed homes and structures.
When one checks in with Palisades Fire victims from Carbon Mesa and Carbon Canyon, one finds they have been left high and dry. Literally. Those residents desperately need water line capacity and storage improvements to comply with Los Angeles County Fire Department standards, which is a condition precedent to obtaining a certificate of occupancy. In 2009, the County Fire Department announced it would no longer permit people to expand or replace a home that isdamaged or destroyed by fire if there is not an adequate water supply to protect the property.
Los Angeles County Department of Public Works District 29 was established in 1969. Its current water lines, which were merged from approximately 20 separate neighborhood systems, were built many decades ago and are in desperate need ofrepair. The District supplies water for Malibu and unincorporated areas of Topanga.
“Upgrading the two-inch water lines in the high canyons of Carbon Mesa is absolutely essential — it needs to be addressed with the highest priority because it directly impacts residents’ decisions regarding what to rebuild or whether to rebuild at all,” said Abe Roy, Malibu City Council’s recently appointed volunteer liaison, who is tasked with assisting fire victims with their building permit applications and with facilitating clear communication between homeowners and the city’s rebuilding staff and contractors.
“If the water lines are not expanded, despite a number of creative options that are being explored, there are some homes that might never have the requisite water flow to meet County Fire Department standards,” Roy emphasized.
On April 27, The Malibu Times published an article concerning a city-sponsored rebuild meeting for Carbon Canyon, Carbon Mesa, and Carbon Beach Terrace neighborhoods. At the meeting, residents expressed extreme frustrations regarding a decades-long delay by District 29 regarding constructing critically needed water line and storage capacity infrastructure improvements so that victims of the 1993 Old Topanga Fire, as well as of the Palisades Fire, can rebuild their homes. A very frustrated but polite and professional Malibuite Lynn Dornhelm, a 1993 fire victim who owns a Carbon Mesa property and who is a Malibu native, testified at the city’s meeting. “We have never been able to rebuild because of the waterline deficiencies,” Dornhelm told the panel of professionals from the LACFD, the city, and its contracted civil engineers, and other professionals, and Army Corps of Engineers. She implored the city to take action immediately.
Clearly, District 29 and the city have known of the need to improve the water lines and to upgrade water storage capacity for decades. Some of the facilities in the district’s system were built in the 1940s and 1950s, according to district records. Many professionals working on the project have generated reports noting that the task of delivering water to the district’s customers is affected by the unique topography in the area, including landslides, bluffs, steep slopes and theynote the area’s potential for earthquakes and the coastline’s geographical features.
The long, tortured history of the Malibu District 29 water system projects
The Malibu Times caught up with Paul Grisanti, who is a former City of Malibu Public Works commissioner, City Councilman and mayor as well as with Don Schmitz, a local design-build and permit expediter, concerning a citizen task force that both men served on beginning in 2011. The task force, which was created at the City of Malibu’s request, aimed to identify all the priority capital deficiencies in District 29, to develop a master plan and to address funding options, according to Grisanti. “The goal was to send the County Department of Public Works a draft master plan with moving forward recommendations, which we did in 2013,” he explained. “Then, the department was supposed to write an environmental impact report, and present it to the City of Malibu for approval.”
However, Grisanti said, “former Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl put the report in her drawer and ignored it.”
Meanwhile, back at Carbon Mesa and Carbon Canyon, residents were bootstrapped, unable to rebuild their homes, Grisanti lamented. “In 2010, the LACFD changed the water fire flow standards, making them more strict and mandated that there be a demonstrated ability for the flow to be a minimum of 1,250 gallons per minute via gravity for two hours for a three-bedroom home, which amounts to requiring storage tanks containing 150,000 gallons of water,” he said, explaining that the pipes feeding the hydrants need to have an 8- to 10-inch diameter to flow that much water, and older Malibu neighborhoods have water mains that are between 2 to 6 inches in diameter.
After the task force’s proposed multimillion-dollar upgrade was unveiled in the summer of 2013, the project lingered in abeyance for years, Grisanti bemoaned, noting that meant that Malibu’s aged water system infrastructure continued to fail in many areas due to leaky, broken pipes and inadequate storage.
Grisanti explained that in 2017, District 29’s water system upgrade stalled as two community groups differed concerning the scope of the project during public input meetings on District 29’s Environmental Impact Report, a study that is mandated by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines section 15809. Such a report must identify the project with specificity, describe the need for and objectives of the project, and identify probable environmental effects of the project. The EIR must be accepted by the City of Malibu and the County Board of Supervisors prior to approval of the district’s project.
On one side of the opposing groups was Grisanti, who stated he was advocating for Malibu. He urged passage of the plan and its proposed water line infrastructure improvements. On the other side was the Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation, Inc., which has been representing homeowners’ interests for 57 years and aims to serve as a guardian of the Santa Monica Mountains. The LVHF viewed the district’s water system improvements as a disguised plan to push water service into unserved areas to further development. Responding to the LVHF’s concerns, Kuehl became worried and ultimately, District 29 withdrew the plan and set out to develop a downsized EIR.
A revised final environmental impact report, which addresses impacts to streams, animal habitats, and sensitive vegetation communities, also proposes mitigation efforts to address those impacts and it addresses protocols to monitor the project’s effect on those areas and their animals, trees, flora, and fauna. Released in April 2021, the revised EIR proposed to make improvements of Carbon Mesa’s reservoir as well as water lines and storage tanks. The EIR also details improvements throughout District 29’s service area. The LVHF has stated that it supports the revised EIR, noting that it prioritizes the neediest, oldest infrastructure with the highest maintenance needs. The Malibu Coalition for Slow Growth and the Malibu Monarch Project concur with the LVHF and urge District 29 to not add new projects to the plan.
Priority one in the new plan is Carbon Mesa. The district is currently in the design phase of the project and it plans to replace pipelines from 3873 Carbon Canyon Road to 22576 Carbon Mesa Road, which amounts to replacing approximately 6,900 feet of aging and undersized 1.5-, 2-, and 4-inch waterlines with 8- and 12-inch diameter steel pipe. The scope of work also includes pump station upgrades and projects and improvements related to water quality, system reliability, and fire flow capacity, according to the district’s website. The total project budget is $8.6 million, including $5.8 million in construction costs.
The district states that the project cannot commence until 2027 and it is scheduled to advertise for construction bids in summer 2026.
Affected fire victims deem that timeline entirely unacceptable, noting that they want to begin rebuilding so they moveback into their homes and get on with their lives. They seek either expedition of the project or interim alternatives that would provide the requisite water flow to fight wildfires so that the fire department approves their projects, they can commence rebuilding and hopefully move into their new residences.
A possible interim water source option for rebuilding homeowners
“There are 20,000-gallon tanks that can be shared across a few homes that may not be too cost prohibitive.” Roy suggested. Affected residents will most likely ask Roy to assist in conversing with the city’s planning officials to determine what solutions make the most sense. They vociferously maintain that it is senseless to make them wait for a long time to begin rebuilding their homes and their lives.
