New Tide of Dissension Hits Las Virgenes Plant : Sewage: Critics say the Tapia treatment site may be sending viruses down Malibu Creek to the sea.

Six miles up Malibu Creek, a world away from where the surfers play, a small reclamation plant quietly goes about the business of turning sewage into clear water.

By the time the malodorous mess--bubbling through a series of concrete chambers--is released into Malibu Creek, it will be clean enough to swim in, at least by federal standards.

“The Tapia plant is an excellent plant,” said Richard A. Harris, a state regulator.

That view is not widely shared in Malibu.

After nearly two decades of friction between the environmentally minded community and operators of the Tapia Water Reclamation Facility, the relationship appears to be hitting a new low this summer:

* Surfers, turning up the heat in their lengthy battle against Tapia, have staged a round of angry protests and canceled an international competition at Surfrider Beach, claiming microorganisms are escaping from the facility’s treatment process and making them ill.

* A study recently released by the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project, a government-funded regional environmental group, has lent credibility to surfers’ medical complaints, confirming the existence of hazardous bacteria and human fecal viral organisms in Malibu Creek, Malibu Lagoon and the surf zone.

* The city of Malibu shows signs of flexing its jurisdictional muscle. A legal exploration, requested by the City Council, has determined that the city has the authority to take measures to block Tapia from contaminating local waters.

Tapia is run by Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves a 122-square-mile area that includes Calabasas, Agoura Hills, Hidden Hills, Westlake Village and unincorporated sections of Los Angeles County. Malibu does not contribute sewage to the facility.

What remains unclear is whether the plant--recognized in 1988 by the Environmental Protection Agency for excellence in operation and maintenance--is actually responsible for any of the viral and bacterial agents present in the water.

The Tapia plant provides a three-stage treatment process for sewage that includes filtration and treatment with chlorine.

Las Virgenes officials say this so-called tertiary treatment produces water that is cleaner than federal standards require. They argue that the plant has been targeted for criticism largely because it is the most easily identifiable source of water entering the creek.

State regulators last year increased the plant’s permit to dump treated effluent into Malibu Creek from 10 million gallons per day to 16.1 million gallons. It now sends about 7 million gallons per day into the creek.

“It’s easy to blame a single entity,” Las Virgenes spokeswoman Ane Deister said. “It’s difficult to deal with the possibility that it may be hundreds or thousands of individual inputs that are causing the problem.”

No one disputes that animals, agricultural runoff, storm drains, homeless people and other sources may be contributing to the contamination.

Also, a Texaco gas station next to Malibu Lagoon has a permit to dump up to 360,000 gallons of water daily as part of its cleanup of a gasoline leak there.

Las Virgenes officials say the question of who is responsible for the pollution won’t be answered conclusively until a thorough source study is conducted, a stance echoed by Jeff Harris, an activist with the environmental groups Heal the Bay, and Environment Now.

“It’s technically clean, according to the Clean Water Act,” he said. “The research question is whether those standards are high enough.”

But some say the issue has been studied to death. Citing several nationally recognized studies that prove viruses can escape some forms of tertiary treatment, Mary Frampton, executive director of the local environmental group Save Our Coast, accused Jeff Harris of being too easy on Tapia and of overlooking what she considers conclusive data on hazards associated with tertiary-treated sewage.

Frampton acknowledged that the incidents of ailing surfers are anecdotal, but she added: “When you get hundreds of them saying they’ve had ear infections, eye infections, internal upsets and even worse, then you know what you’re doing is criminal. If a terrorist were doing this to visitors and swimmers, he’d be in jail in five minutes.”

Microbiologist D. Jay Grimes, now with the U.S. Department of Energy, has spent 11 years studying the effectiveness of reclamation plants in removing microorganisms. He has concluded that viruses often escape tertiary treatment and links the problem largely to the use of chlorine as a disinfectant.

Although he has not studied Tapia specifically, Grimes said many plants use less chlorine than is needed to kill microorganisms because of dangers associated with excessive chlorine use. One is that chlorine can combine with organic compounds to form carcinogens such as chloroform.

“Most plants do not chlorinate sufficiently to remove all the pathogens,” Grimes said.

Gastrointestinal viruses are among the most common in treated sewage, but more serious strains have been isolated as well. A University of Florida study last year reported the presence of HIV--the AIDS virus--in treated effluent from a Florida plant, although the test did not show whether the virus was infectious.

Grimes said there has never been a documented case of anyone contracting AIDS from tertiary-treated sewage effluent. And Kent McLain, general manager of the Las Virgenes district, stressed that tests of Tapia’s effluent have never detected viruses of any kind.

To further allay concerns, Las Virgenes district is spending $100,000 on sophisticated “gene-probe” testing--said to be the best method available for detecting viral agents in effluent.

Some Malibu residents say they don’t trust the plant to test itself, and others point to the broader issue of whether Tapia should be allowed to dump any amount of water into the creek, no matter how clean.

Stating an opinion widely shared in Malibu, Grimes said: “My own personal bias is that treatment plants shouldn’t be releasing effluent into coastal recreation areas. They’re contradictory uses.”

Jeff Harris of Heal the Bay agreed, noting that the dumping creates a breeding ground for bacteria by altering the natural habitat of the lagoon and the stream, which would normally run dry for much of the year.

“People concentrate on whether Tapia is the source (of the microorganisms) and other issues get neglected,” he said. “These other things are real clear-cut and real detrimental.

“Tapia will just tell you: ‘We meet the (federal) Clean Water Act, we’re not the problem.’ But they are creating part of the problem with their discharges.”

Richard Harris, the regulator with the California Water Quality Control Board, countered that high levels of development in the area make it likely the stream would run year-round even without Tapia’s contribution.

“They’ve always hated the fact there’s a treatment plant there,” Richard Harris said of Malibu’s environmental groups. “If the plant weren’t there, there’d still be water in Malibu Creek.”

In exchange for Tapia’s commitment to gene probe testing, three of the groups--Environment Now, Heal the Bay and the Natural Resources Defense Council--have agreed not to try to get the plant’s dumping permit thrown out.

Only Save Our Coast refused to sign the agreement, contending that the other organizations were cozying up to the treatment plant.

Save Our Coast’s Frampton--accusing Heal the Bay’s Jeff Harris of selling out the anti-Tapia movement--said she was “furious with him.”

“I think he’s just decided to go along, get along,” she said.

He responded with a call for coordination and cooperation.

“I’m not interested in creating factions,” he said. “We need as broad a coalition as possible.”

City officials, meanwhile, are still digesting a legal opinion concluding that Malibu would be on legally defensible ground were it to pass an ordinance or take some other measure to stop Tapia’s discharge.

The key in court, said Mayor Walter Keller, would be if Malibu could prove damages.

So far, the city is proceeding slowly. Last week, the City Council tabled Tapia-related resolutions from Jeff Harris and Save Our Coast in favor of organizing a meeting between Malibu and Las Virgenes officials.

“We have to take this step by step, or they’ll fight us all the way,” Keller said.