Malibu Sewer Plan Is a Case of Overkill

The County of Los Angeles wants to build a $60-million regional sewer system in Malibu. On the surface the plan appears to be sound: Replace antiquated septic systems with a sparkling new tertiary treatment plant, which would end the problem of beaches contaminated by failing underground tanks.

Unfortunately both for Malibu residents and for the millions of Southern Californians who travel to the community’s beaches and mountain trails for recreation each year, the proposed sewer program would burden the environment rather than improve it.

County officials argue that beach contamination in the area is so serious as to require construction of an elaborate new system, but they show no similar alarm at the far worse and persistent bacterial contamination of Los Angeles and Santa Monica beaches. Equally plausible explanations for Malibu’s high bacteria levels could be storm-drain run-off or ocean currents that carry highly contaminated seawater from Los Angeles and Santa Monica beaches.

But to the extent that failed septic tanks in Malibu are a problem, remedies could focus on improving such limited areas as Malibu Colony, a two-mile stretch where many systems proved inadequate in the face of severe storms in 1983. Instead, the county wants to sewer 27 miles of coastline along Pacific Coast Highway. The county’s plan is a case of overkill. A sewer system is necessary for limited portions of the Civic Center area east of Pepperdine University and for the growth of the university. But the capacity of existing sewage facilities, such as the Malibu Mesa Waste Water Treatment Plant, could be expanded to serve the needs of already approved commercial and residential projects.

Even though Malibu residents have voted three times against a regional sewer system, they are the ones who would have to pay the costs: $13,000 to $26,000 per household, by the county’s own estimate. And public-works projects almost always cost more than initial projections. Taking these and other factors into account, some estimates have been as high as $84,000 per household. Is there any wonder that there is so much opposition to this scheme?

In reality, county supervisors like Deane Dana, whose 4th District includes Malibu, are asking residents to pick up the tab for building the infrastructure necessary to expand commercial and residential development in the area. Instead of representing the residents’ interests, county government is working on behalf of the contractors, real-estate developers and others who would benefit handsomely from public financing of their profit-making ventures.

Why should the rest of Los Angeles County care about what the supervisors are trying to pull in Malibu? After all, the common perception goes, those rich Malibu residents can afford to pay. Not true. The majority of them are not six-figure earners but retirees on fixed incomes, or people with earnings of $20,000 to $25,000 a year. As the middle class is driven out of Malibu by the costs of living there, the wealthy would become the only ones able to own newly sewered homes. The community would become as wealthy as the county now says it is--and as overdeveloped as environmentalists fear.

For those of us who take pleasure in Malibu’s beaches and mountain trails, the regional sewer system would deeply interfere with our enjoyment of the area’s unique recreational resources. Anyone who has driven along Pacific Coast Highway during peak traffic hours, or on a summer weekend, knows how terrible the traffic is there. It is the only road in and out of Malibu. The construction of the sewer, which the California Department of Transportation estimates would take five years, would reduce the highway to only two lanes in the construction area. The ensuing traffic nightmare would deter even the most ardent beachgoer or hiker and make the residents virtual prisoners in emergencies.

The traffic problem would not end there. Once completed, the sewer is designed to service the additional 6,582 new residences that the county has obtained permission from the Coastal Commission to build. Since Caltrans currently has no significant plans to expand the coast highway, the added traffic would further overwhelm the road, threatening day after miserable day of hopeless gridlock.

The odor threatening Malibu is not from sewage on the beach but from back-room deals to overdevelop its fragile environment.