Malibu Again Fights County Effort to Install Sewer Lines

Three times, in 1966, 1968 and 1971, Los Angeles County asked the voters of Malibu to approve a bond measure for a sewer system in their coastal community. Three times, the county was turned down, most recently by a 6-1 margin.

Once again, the county is pushing for a regional sewage system in Malibu. The latest proposal, which includes a new treatment plant, is a two-phase $60-million project that would serve 17 miles of shoreline and a few inland areas.

Once again, howls of protest are rising from beachfront decks and bluff-top patios.

Malibu car bumpers have begun sporting yellow stickers bearing the motto “Fight Sewers.” A weekly paper has published anti-sewer cartoons. Handbills urged residents to “bring high umbrage and your checkbook” to a recent forum on the sewer issue sponsored by the Malibu Township Council, a civic group representing about 1,000 families.

It is not that the residents are especially devoted to their septic tanks, many of which are faulty and a source of pollution. But sewers are a symbol of the urban setting that many of them thought they had escaped when they moved to Malibu.

‘Another Euphemism’

“Where you stand on sewers is just another euphemism for where you stand on growth or no growth,” said Roy Crummer, a developer with extensive Malibu holdings.

The county’s consultants have warned that acceptance of the proposal will be marginal among the 8,400 people who live in the area being considered for sewers.

But this time, the voters will not have the final word.

The county’s Health Services Department has stated that the failed septic systems along stretches of the Malibu beach are a public hazard, a finding that empowers the county Board of Supervisors to force property owners to pay for the sewer system. Individual costs are projected at $13,000 to $26,000.

If four of the five supervisors favor the project when the board considers the matter in early 1987, landholders will be assessed and construction will proceed. Supervisor Deane Dana, whose Fourth District includes Malibu, strongly supports the proposal and says he expects it to pass.

County health and public works officials say they cannot remember ever going to such lengths to impose a waste treatment system on an unwilling community.

Although these officials express concern about the health problems caused by faulty septic tanks, their departments routinely permit construction of new shorefront buildings with septic systems that violate county plumbing codes under an exception known as the “Malibu waiver” or the “beach policy.”

So the skirmishing has begun.

There is no doubt that sewers would make building in Malibu easier.

No Laundromats

The Malibu of septic tanks is a land without carwashes or laundromats or other businesses that would generate large volumes of dirty water the ground cannot absorb. Many residents maintain the delicate balance of their septic systems by forgoing long showers and large parties. Apartment managers keep a careful eye on the number of tenants in each unit to make sure the plumbing is not overburdened.

Without sewers, the grandly named Civic Center, a 92-acre area east of Pepperdine University that has been targeted for intensive commercial development, contains large fields of weeds and brush, along with a few low-rise offices and restaurants. The high water table means there is little room for liquid discharged from septic tanks.

Development pressures in Malibu have never been greater. A 300-room hotel and a General Motors Corp. research center got building permits this year from the county and the state Coastal Commission, on the condition that adequate sewage disposal be arranged. At least three more hotels are in the planning stages in sections of Malibu that the county’s staff has recommended for sewers.

Approval of the sewer project would also have more immediate consequences that fill many residents with dread.

Some say the high assessments would mean the loss of their homes. “We’re not movie stars. Not everybody with a Malibu address is wealthy,” said Anna Hutchinson, a 60-year-old artist and former lab technician.

‘Where Will We Go?’

She and her husband, who owns a small manufacturing business in Santa Monica, have lived for 25 years in a 1,000-square-foot house near the beach in western Malibu. “We have actually taken out maps and looked at them and said, ‘Where will we go when this happens?’ ” she said.

Then there is the effect of sewer construction on clogged Pacific Coast Highway, the only road connecting Malibu to Santa Monica and the West Los Angeles area.

The main sewer line would run under the highway for miles; the only alternative routes would go through geologically unstable hillsides or on the beach.

The California Department of Transportation estimates that construction of the first phase would take a little more than three years. The second would take nearly 21 months and the county’s consultants say it would be built about 20 years later. Although the consultants say crews would not work during rush hours, Caltrans says a lane would still have to be closed in the construction area all day.

Traffic is bad enough already, commuters say.

For two months, Dona Bigelow has mailed a postcard to Dana every day to emphasize her opposition to the sewer project.

“I drive to work to Santa Monica,” the card reads. “Today it took me ------. I left my home at ---- and I observed no accident or road work, just normal traffic.” She fills in the blanks with the appropriate information.

She ends each card with this message: “We do not need nor can we accommodate sewers! We do not need nor can we accommodate more housing.”

Development Issue

As always, the argument returns to the subject of development.

Each side accuses the other of being more concerned with the sewer system’s growth-inducing effects than with a potential threat to public health.

“The residents realize if they can delay this project again for a couple more years, they can delay some of the growth,” said Frank Grant, project manager for the county’s consultant, James M. Montgomery Consulting Engineers Inc.

He noted that the county and state are working on a land-use plan for Malibu. The two governments have agreed in theory to allow about 6,500 new buildings. The state has taken the position that a sewer system is required before so much development could occur.

The sewer proposal, Grant said, has been crafted to safely accommodate that new construction--and no more. “Growth is a separate issue that has already been argued,” he said.

From the opposition: “If we had a general plan that was acceptable to us, we would buy that,” said Leon Cooper, the township council president. “Their plan is an absence of plan.”

He added, “The county looks upon Malibu as a milk cow, as a source of revenue that can potentially make a significant contribution to the county tax revenues.”

Cooper said he does not believe that a health hazard exists. Several ardent champions of cleaning up pollution in the Santa Monica Bay also question the county’s findings. Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), state Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) and marine biologist Rimmon S. Fay have denounced the sewer proposal.

‘Really Stinks’

“This is not a concern about sewage, but what’s going on is the promotion of development. And that’s what really stinks,” Hayden told an audience of 500 at the township council’s anti-sewer meeting last month.

A sewer system, he said, “will transform Malibu into a much denser, more congested, hazardous and complicated place to live.” Advocates of limited growth have said for years that large-scale development would overburden the coast highway, which has little room for expansion, as well as Malibu’s fragile environment, which is prone to landslides, fire and floods.

Hayden also charged that the sewer project is “fueled by contributions.”

Dana has received tens of thousands of dollars in political donations from builders, real estate agents, property owners and others who stand to gain financially if Malibu gets sewers.

For example, from 1981 through last month, the Adamson Cos. and its officers gave cash and gifts worth $27,100. LAACO Inc. gave $14,300. The Paradise Cove Land Co. and its officers gave $2,000; Reco Land Corp. and related companies gave $6,100--a total of nearly $50,000. All four firms have expressed interest in building Malibu hotels.

Dana said in a telephone interview that neither a tax base increase nor political contributions are behind his pro-sewer stance.

“I would like to see some growth, because in Malibu we can’t allow development of medical facilities and community support buildings that should be in the Civic Center, not without a sewer system,” Dana said.

‘Basic Necessities’

“That means people leave Malibu to get the basic necessities of life, which causes further congestion on the highway.”

Dana, who was elected to the board in 1981, said he did not focus on the sewer issue until March, 1983, when severe storms sent powerful waves crashing into Malibu’s shorefront homes, washing out 239 septic systems.

Raw sewage spilled onto the sand. Twelve miles of Malibu beachfront were closed for 2 1/2 months while the damage was repaired.

“Then we got into this slide situation” at Big Rock Mesa, Dana said. The county is being sued by more than 200 Big Rock families who say a massive landslide that damaged their homes was caused by the county’s approval of their subdivision without adequate sewage or drainage.

“And then,” Dana said, “it got to the point where you’re sitting in a restaurant in the Malibu Civic Center and you suddenly smell something.”

The board asked the health department for an opinion on the Malibu sewage disposal situation. The response came in a letter, dated April 10, 1985, from County Health Director Robert C. Gates.

“I consider the need for sanitary sewers to be critical both for the protection of health of area residents and those others who may use this recreation area without knowing of the substandard sewage disposal facilities common in Malibu,” the letter says.

875 System Failures

A review of county records on 2,280 septic tanks in the area proposed for sewers shows 875 system failures over the last 10 years. Most occurred along the beach.

That number of failures “could be serious,” said Jim Kreissl, an engineer at the water research engineering lab operated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Cincinnati.

“This problem is cyclic,” said Robert Saviskas, a county environmental health officer based in Malibu. “You’ll have good years. And you’ll have bad years. And the bad years correlate with the stormy years.”

Last year, Saviskas said, “we randomly selected addresses on the beach that had no complaints (lodged against them) at the time, and we visited them.” Of 40 homes inspected, Saviskas said, 12 had rigged up illegal pipes to discharge laundry or wash water onto the beach--an indication that the septic system had to struggle just to handle the bathroom water. Untreated sewage was observed on the ground at four other houses.

No outbreaks--or even individual cases--of illness have been linked to Malibu’s septic systems. “That is not to say that there has not been any disease,” said Caswell A. Evans, an assistant director of the health department. “We’re all prepared to assume that there has been disease in the community that wasn’t recognized. It might even be visitors who might not connect that Mary Jane has an upset stomach with the fact that she was in Malibu yesterday.”

To Brian Scanlon, the county’s sewer maintenance superintendent, the septic failures, the sightings of violations and the health department’s talk of potential illness add up to a recommendation for sewers, whether the residents welcome the system or not.

‘Preventive Measure’

“We have to be conservative,” Scanlon said. “The county is the one that’s liable if something does go wrong. This is a preventive measure.”

But the “Malibu waiver” is an indication that others in his own department--public works--are not as worried about the local septic tanks as he is.

The waiver or “beach policy” allows septic tanks in the sand under houses propped up by stilts on the Malibu beaches--the very areas that have experienced the worst failure rates.

Septic systems send waste into concrete tanks where bacteria break down the solids and the liquid is discharged into the soil. The ground is supposed to act as a filter for the waste water, cleansing the liquid before it reaches the water table.

“In a sandy area, your problem is not with the stuff going down so fast,” said the EPA’s Kreissl. “It’s the high ground water. For the effluent to purify, it needs about three feet of unsaturated soil to slowly percolate through.”

The waiver “is a direct violation of the county plumbing code,” said Norman L. Groom, chief environmental health officer for the county’s outlying areas, including Malibu. Raw sewage is not allowed so close to dwellings in any other part of the county, Groom said, because chances of exposure are high if the septic tank stops working.

‘This Was a Mistake’

The waiver is routinely applied under an agreement between the health and public works departments that is about 30 years old, Groom said. “This was a mistake from the word go,” he said.

Asked if the waiver has contributed to the potential for health problems, Groom said: “It did. There’s no way around it.”

But without the waiver, “many of these lots would be unbuildable,” said Ed Biddlecomb, assistant superintendent of the public works department’s building and safety division. Biddlecomb was district engineer in Malibu from mid-1978 until last April.

The policy “is a recognition, as I understand it, of what had been going on before we had regulations out there,” Biddlecomb said.

About six years ago, the two departments suggested that the waiver stop being applied, Groom and Biddlecomb recalled. As a result, a Malibu-Santa Monica Mountains General Plan adopted by the county in 1981 included a section requiring that all new septic tanks comply with the plumbing code.

But the state rejected the larger plan, so the end of the waiver “never really went into effect,” Biddlecomb said.

200 New Systems

He estimated about 200 new septic systems have been built on the beach under the waiver in the last 15 years.

The practice continues, he said, 19 months after the health department declared the beachfront systems dangerous.

Enforcing the county plumbing code would be “a far-reaching change as far as being able to build on these properties,” Biddlecomb said. “As soon as you put it into effect, you’re going to have quite a few people screaming there.”

He said the declaration of a health hazard has not convinced him that the county has “concrete evidence that there is a problem rather than just speculation.”