Tighter Controls Placed on Sewage in Malibu Creek

To the surprise of environmentalists, the state agency charged with regulating water quality in Los Angeles voted Monday to go beyond the recommendations of its staff and for the first time place significant restrictions on sewage discharge into Malibu Creek.

The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board had been expected to sanction a weaker version of the permit governing the Tapia Water Reclamation Facility, despite activists’ complaints that the document was too permissive in the areas of monitoring, discharge and nutrient limits.

But after listening to hours of testimony at Camarillo City Hall from environmental activists, Malibu residents, surfers and swimmers, the board passed more stringent provisions.

“Increased urbanization makes stricter requirements necessary to maintain what you have,” outgoing board member Charles Vernon said before the vote.

Among the board’s tougher measures are:

* A prohibition on discharging treated effluent into the creek from May to November, the most popular beach-going months. The draft had advocated a ban only from June 15 through Sept. 15, which environmentalists said was inadequate given the long, dry California summer.

* Average daily and yearly limits on the amount of nitrate that Tapia can discharge. The earlier document had recommended against a cap pending further study.

* A review of the permit in three years, especially to reexamine the limits on phosphates and nitrates, which some board members and most activists contend should be even lower. A permit is generally issued for five years, although Tapia’s last governing document was granted in 1989.

Malibu residents have been complaining about Tapia since 1964, when the regional board first considered its effects on the lagoon ecosystem. But calls for change have grown recently as evidence has mounted that nearby surfers and swimmers are at increased risk of illness, especially after the polluted lagoon floods and its waters infiltrate the surrounding bay.

Most of those objecting to Tapia’s discharge contend that Tapia’s waters are not the source of the bacteria and viruses found in Surfrider Beach water, although some believe that treated waters might transport contamination from other sources.

The problem is that adding more water to the lagoon increases the chances that it will breach the sand berm that contains it, activists say.

Furthermore, environmentalists say, the higher levels of nutrients contained in treated effluent are changing the composition of the lagoon and threatening two endangered species of fish.

“Something has to be done,” board member Marilyn Lyon told her colleagues before the vote. “Malibu Lagoon is a filthy mess, and it doesn’t matter that the water coming down [from Tapia] is clean--it’s flushing out a filthy mess.”

A Tapia representative said after the vote that he did not believe that the water district had the facilities to comply with the board’s directive.

“We’re disappointed because we were hopeful of moving forward on this and now there will be further delays,” said Norman Buehring of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which operates the facility. “Tapia is just one contributor of many to the flow [into the creek].”

Some environmentalists, complaining throughout the proceedings as various board members seemed disinclined to issue tougher restrictions, were elated after the vote.

“I think this is the first good thing that the Regional Water Board has done for the Malibu watershed and the surfers at Surfrider Beach for 25 years,” said Mark Gold, the executive director of Heal the Bay.