Beach Pollution

* Re “Water Agency Rescinds $5,700 Fine Against Malibu,” May 28.

As you drive down Pacific Coast Highway you pass a welcome sign at the north end of Malibu. It reads “Malibu--27 Miles of Scenic Beauty.” It should read “27 Miles of Septic Beauty,” and I know it all too well.

I have surfed various spots in Malibu for the past 25 years. In 1990 I spent $700 to treat an ear infection I contracted at Malibu Point when the berm opened up and all the brown gunk came out into the surf zone. One person had to have a heart transplant because of a rare virus that was later detected in “Polio Pond.” A knee-boarder I know surfed every morning until he contracted a severe respiratory flu that lasted six months. A teenager had to endure a mysterious creeping crud on his face for months during one of his most self-conscious adolescent years.

Malibu cityhood was apparently about avoiding sewers because of taxes that would be levied on the wealthy residents, because development is proceeding even without sewers. After the El Nino storms inspectors were able to walk the beach and red-tag some aged septic tanks that had been undermined and exposed.

Why is a city with some of the highest per-capita income levels content to eat health food and sip bottled water while it lets the most beautiful pier in California rot and allows its fecal waste to spoil the water?

They should change the sign and adopt the phrase I saw years ago on a bumper sticker: “Malibu--Where the Affluent Meet the Effluent,”

HILLS SUTTON

Ventura