Surfers Stay Away From Malibu Beach Ruined by Pollution

It is enough to set a surfer’s teeth on edge: Malibu’s Surfrider Beach, one of the world’s best, not to mention most famous, surfing beaches is being ruined by pollution.

Had it occurred 30 years ago, some say only half jokingly, Gidget would have never gone near the place, and Frankie Avalon might have never dropped a beach blanket there.

“I look at the waves and marvel, but I won’t surf there anymore,” said John Van Hamersveld, 48, who abandoned Surfrider Beach two years ago when, after a day in the surf, his nose became infected and his face broke out in a rash.

His is a common refrain directed at one of Southern California’s prettiest and most popular beaches.

The culprit, most experts agree, is the algae-laden water of Malibu Lagoon State Beach, the official name of the beach and nearby lagoon, which environmentalists say has become a receptacle for a wide array of pollutants flowing down from the Santa Monica Mountains via Malibu Creek. Just who is to blame for the pollution, and where, exactly, it is coming from, is the subject of heated debate.

For several years, surfers, swimmers, environmentalists and residents have clashed over what to do about it. More recently, each group has blamed a municipal water district that serves the fast-growing west San Fernando Valley and whose reclamation plant next to the creek spews effluent that ends up in the coastal lagoon.

Critics say effluent from the Tapia Reclamation Plant five miles upstream from the beach has not only contributed to the demise of the lagoon but has also helped to swell the creek near expensive homes during heavy rains.

They were upset when the California Coastal Commission unanimously approved a plan to increase capacity of the plant from 10 million gallons a day to 16.1 million gallons. Officials of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves about 80,000 residents, have said they hope to begin work on the $30-million expansion by the end of the year and finish by late 1992.

Water district officials have denied that effluent from the plant, which they say is suitable for body contact, has negatively affected the creek or the lagoon. The creek, they say, collects drainage from 150 square miles, and they insist that the plant’s effluent is one of the few good things that goes into it.

But critics contend the effluent has contributed to increased bacteria and algae growth in the lagoon because, by increasing the creek’s flow, more water becomes trapped and stagnates in the lagoon.

Several experts have said that bacteria levels represent a health hazard for swimmers and surfers off the beach and the lagoon, and that state and county health officials have not done enough to warn people of the potential danger.

“I have treated scores, if not hundreds, of patients whose infections are directly attributable to having come in contact with the water off that beach,” said Dr. Jeff Harris, a physician who has practiced in Malibu for 15 years.

His patients have complained of stomach, ear, sinus and other infections after swimming or surfing near the lagoon and the half-mile stretch of beach revered by surfers for its consistently high-quality breakers.

Water district officials say critics have exaggerated the plant’s role in raising the water level of the lagoon. They say much of the lagoon’s water is from other sources, including percolation from septic tanks and irrigation uses, as well as seawater intrusion.

“If you look at Malibu Creek just above the lagoon this week, you will see that it is dry,” said Jim Colbaugh, the water district’s director of planning and engineering. “Not a drop of Tapia effluent has been emptied into the creek in the last couple of weeks because we’ve been selling our reclaimed water to customers in the Valley. So where’s the water in the lagoon coming from? Not from us.”

But others disagree.

“What they seem to forget is that at the bottom of the creek, you have a lagoon that acts as a reservoir,” Harris said. “Just because they’ve not dumped water from the plant into the creek for two weeks doesn’t mean that there isn’t plenty of the plant’s effluent still there.”

Malibu Lagoon State Beach is spread over 169 acres, although the lagoon covers only about 30 acres. The state operates the park, while Los Angeles County is responsible for providing lifeguard and other beach services.

To prevent septic tanks from overflowing at beachfront homes in the nearby Malibu Colony, water must be let out of the lagoon about twice a month. Each time, a state bulldozer cuts a swath through the sandy beach that separates the lagoon from the ocean. For several days, the brackish lagoon water pours into the sea until waves push against the sand enough to once again close off the artificial storm drain.

Because of the pollution caused by the escaping lagoon water, the storm drain’s location has long pitted surfers against swimmers and residents.

Bill and Fini Littlejohn, who live in the colony, are among a handful of swimmer advocates who for several years have accused state parks officials of yielding to pressure from surfers to have the storm drain cut at the west end of the beach, which is mostly used for swimming.

Their complaints might finally be about to pay off.

Dan Preece, district superintendent for the state Department of Parks and Recreation, said this week that in the future the storm drain will be cut several hundred feet to the east, in keeping with a 1984 agreement with swimmers, surfers and residents.