This Hot Line Turns Out to Be Too Hot to Handle : Environment: Publicity generates a flood of calls about illegal development. But nobody consulted the toll-free line’s operators, who say it is reserved for reports of hazardous-material releases.

Maybe the toll-free number should have been (800) SCREW-UP.

Through no apparent fault of its own, the state Office of Emergency Services found itself thoroughly unprepared for a deluge of phone calls that followed the release of a toll-free number for reporting unlawful development in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The number was announced a week ago by the Santa Monica Mountains Enforcement Task Force at a heavily promoted news conference in Malibu.

Task Force officials touted it as a 24-hour hot line to report illegal building, grading and other activities detrimental to the mountains and nearby coastal zone.

The trouble was, somebody forgot to tell the people who operate the line: the state Office of Emergency Services.

After fielding dozens of unexpected calls during the past weekend, miffed Emergency Services officials criticized the task force for handing out a statewide number strictly reserved for reporting releases of hazardous materials--such as gasoline or chemical spills--into the environment.

A clearly perturbed Chuck Young, supervisor of the warning center in the Office of Emergency Services in Sacramento, said the line, which is staffed by a lone operator at night and on weekends, was already overburdened beforehand.

“This is bottling up an emergency line,” he said. “Under no circumstances should this (number) be republished.”

Emergency Services spokeswoman Cindy Kawano said the hazardous-material hot line received about 65 extra calls during the weekend after the number was published in The Times. Frustrated warning center employees wound up routing the calls to the work number of John Lewis, who, along with Coastal Commissioner Madelyn Glickfeld of Malibu, called the news conference last week in part to give out the number.

Warning center employees even toyed with the idea of forwarding the calls to Lewis’ home phone.

“We were tempted because Mr. Lewis was not very cooperative,” Kawano said.

The hot line number appears on the back of a flyer titled “Reporting Violations in the Santa Monica Mountains and Beach Areas of Malibu.” The guide, also released at the news conference, is aimed at helping citizens report illegal construction activity to the proper authorities. It includes the names and phones numbers of 16 agencies participating in the regionwide task force.

The 24-hour toll-free number appears with instructions that it be called only during non-business hours Monday through Friday, or on weekends and holidays.

Even then, the flyer stipulates that the number is to be called only if the task force agency that would normally respond to the problem lacks a 24-hour line of its own.

But, in fact, each participating agency does have a 24-hour emergency phone number, according to a chart that appears in the flyer--all of which raises the question why the task force needed a hot line of its own in the first place.

For her part, Glickfeld worries that the misunderstanding is hampering efforts to collar violators.

“Literally what’s happening is that people who would ordinarily be calling us (the commission and other task force agencies) aren’t calling,” she said. “They’re calling (Emergency Services).”

The phone fiasco is being looked into, said Lewis, who represents the Los Angeles Division of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board on the task force. A follow-up news release will be issued through the Coastal Commission, he said, explaining that the number--(800) 852-7550--is only to be used to report hazardous materials spills in the Santa Monica Mountains that occur during non-business hours.

Emergency Services spokeswoman Kawano was dubious about the task force’s attempts to make things right.

“It seems like a backdoor way to do things,” she said. “If I were them, I would check with us this time since they kind of messed up last time.”