Septic Firm Is Declared a Nuisance : Hidden Hills: The city says the business is operating without proper permits, but the company’s owner accuses officials of economic snobbery.
The city of Hidden Hills has declared its only industrial site--an unlicensed transfer station for septic and industrial wastes--a public nuisance.
Officials of the affluent, gated community say the action is justified because Gene’s Pumping Service is operating without the proper permits and has contaminated soil on Old Scandia Lane with such hazardous wastes as used motor oil.
But Gene’s owner said city officials are motivated solely by economic snobbery. Like the only other businesses--a real estate office and construction company--in the tree-lined city of 2,000, Gene’s is situated outside the community’s gates.
“They’re just too elitist,” said Tom Lubisich, who owns Gene’s. “They’re really paranoid about us.”
The pumping service came under the city’s jurisdiction in February when Hidden Hills annexed a 25-acre parcel from Los Angeles County during its battle to keep lower-cost housing from being built within its gates. The land was intended as a site for the housing, but it was never built and aside from the pumping service, is still vacant.
“We didn’t know it at the time, but we had inherited a problem,” Hidden Hills Mayor Roger Herdeg said.
Unbeknown to Hidden Hills officials, Los Angeles County was on the verge of prosecuting the business for operating without the proper zoning permit. The county’s investigation was prompted by complaints from local business owners about odors, dust and soil contamination.
The property is also next to Calabasas, and a businessman based there, who asked not to be identified, called Gene’s “a disgrace operating out of an unpaved dust bowl--a carpetbag activity that breaches all the rules of society.”
Lubisich said he has rented the Old Scandia Lane property since December, primarily as a storage yard and transfer point for trucks that pump human waste from septic tanks and haul industrial wastes, such as water used to wash vehicles in municipal maintenance yards. He said some solids are strained from the waste at the Hidden Hills yard, but that all the material is quickly deposited at county-authorized sites, not stored at the yard.
“Why can’t they be a little neighborly?” he asked. “I’m not worried about my own pocketbook--what would Malibu or Topanga do without me?--there just aren’t enough septic pumping services around.”
Beginning in 1984, the city’s redevelopment agency was under obligation to allow construction of lower-cost housing. Faced with a lawsuit from a developer who wanted to build that housing, the city annexed the property so that the housing would go outside the exclusive gated community, where houses sell for millions of dollars. Earlier this year, however, the Los Angeles Superior Court judge who heard that lawsuit backed away from requiring the city to meet its obligation.
Meanwhile, determined to see Gene’s properly licensed or shut down, the Calabasas business owners took their complaints to the city in February when the county lost jurisdiction over the area. But they didn’t get immediate results.
“It was a typical Murphy’s Law situation,” said another Calabasas businessman, referring to the proposition that if the possibility exists for something to go wrong, it will go wrong. The businessman’s tenants have complained about Gene’s. “The biggest problem Hidden Hills usually has is the gardener drives his truck onto their lawn. This just isn’t in their line of work,” he said.
Lacking a fully staffed public works department, Hidden Hills paid Los Angeles County about $500 to inspect the business, said Joseph Baiocco, supervising inspector for the county’s waste management division.
Baiocco said Lubisich has the proper county health department permits to be a domestic waste hauler but he lacks an industrial waste disposal permit from Hidden Hills. Such a permit costs a minimum of about $450, and detailed plans for disposing of the waste are required before it is issued, he said.
The company has installed--without approval from the Hidden Hills city engineer--a primitive gravity filter system to separate liquid from solid wastes, according to Baiocco’s July 20 report. Also, the firm allows wash water from its trucks and used motor oil to leak onto the ground instead of catching the spills and removing them from the property, Baiocco said.
Based on the county report, the Hidden Hills City Council declared Gene’s a public nuisance Aug. 27 but continued a public hearing on the issue until Sept. 10 to give Lubisich a chance to present his case.
Mayor Herdeg said that even if Lubisich were to apply for the proper permits, the city would probably deny them. Residents of Hidden Hills want the business to move out after performing any cleanup of the site deemed necessary by inspectors.
“Certainly, it is objectionable personally to me,” Herdeg said, referring to the pumping service. “My suspicion is the city will not allow any business more polluting than an office building on that site.”
