Olivia Newton-John Makes Waves With Dirt From Beach Home Work : Coastline: The singer is an honorary ambassador for the environment, but neighbors say debris is muddying the ocean.

Having long enjoyed a reputation as a celebrity concerned about the environment, singer Olivia Newton-John is now incurring the wrath of environmentalists and some of her neighbors over a beach home she and her husband are building in Malibu.

Irate residents complain that tons of dirt and sand have been illegally dumped on the beach during construction of a seawall for the 6,000-square-foot home the singer and her husband, Matt Lattanzi, are building in the exclusive Paradise Cove area.

“It’s an environmental disaster,” said Mary Frampton, executive director of the 1,000-member Save Our Coast environmental group based in Malibu. “If that were a landslide, it would be big enough to close Pacific Coast Highway.”

Residents said that some of the sand and dirt, removed to install a dozen concrete pilings to support the seawall, has washed into the ocean, turning the ordinarily pristine water beside their expensive beachfront properties a murky brown.

“If we get a heavy rain or the tide rises high enough, her front yard is going to be in my front yard,” said Gretchen Buck, who lives a few hundred feet down the beach from the singer’s property.

“If it were me or anyone else doing that, the Coastal Commission would be down here in a flash.”

Officials of the state Coastal Commission said the matter is being investigated.

A spokesman for Newton-John said Friday that the singer-actress would have nothing to say about the matter, preferring that any public comments come from her husband.

“I know it looks like a mess, but we intend to do everything in our power to make amends with the neighbors if anyone has been offended,” said Lattanzi, who added that he has personally overseen development of the 2-acre property.

However, he insisted that there has been no environmental damage to the ocean as a result of the project and said that the complaints “have bordered on the sensational.”

“I just think that some of what I’m hearing is very unfair to Olivia,” he said. “Neither of us would knowingly do anything to harm the coastline. She would cringe to think that anyone could think she would condone damaging the environment.”

The singer, who lives in Malibu with her husband and 3-year-old daughter, has long been an outspoken advocate for environmental causes, including efforts to protect whales and to save the Brazilian rain forests.

Last month, she was appointed an honorary U.N. goodwill ambassador on behalf of the environment.

In 1987, she represented the Save Our Coast group at a hearing before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, donning a Save Our Coast T-shirt and testifying against the county’s efforts to impose a sewer system in Malibu.

She and Lattanzi acquired the beach property in 1981 to build a home. They had another house at the site demolished the next year. But their plans changed, Lattanzi said, after a severe storm eroded much of the bluff.

Since then, the Coastal Commission has granted its permission for extensive grading of the property in return for the couple’s promise to shore up the bluff and restore vegetation there once their planned solar-powered house, which Lattanzi said will resemble a sand castle, is finished.

Last June, the commission issued a permit allowing the seawall to be built on the condition that no sand or dirt be stockpiled on the beach and that the work be completed by November. The permit expired Nov. 1.

Pam Emerson, a Coastal Commission enforcement officer, said the panel imposed the November deadline to make sure the work was done before winter rains posed a further threat to the bluff and the beach below.

By law, the commission has the authority to seek civil penalties of up to $5,000 a day in cases where applicants knowingly violate the state Coastal Act.

However, Lattanzi blamed “unforeseen delays” for the work’s not being finished by the time the permit expired, adding that he “didn’t set out to do anything illegal.”

“It’s a situation where we’re doing everything we can to get the work finished up before there is a storm and people really have something to complain about,” he said.

But such assurances have done little to quell the criticism of neighbors.

“I look off of my balcony and what I see is a run of mud along the surf line coming from over there,” said Sheldon Sloan, whose beachfront property is nearby. “I’m not opposed to their building a home, but you don’t pile that stuff on the beach.”