Malibu Surfers Battle Pollution With Indian Rite, Awareness Drive

Carrying the blessing of a Chumash priest, 45 surfers paddled out at Malibu early Sunday and aptly formed a “healing circle” between the pier and picture perfect Surfrider Beach--one of the unhealthiest strips of shoreline in the United States.

In a place that often contains high levels of bacteria from runoff and sewage, the surfers took turns talking about the environment and what the storied point break meant to them.

When it was his turn to speak, Hersh Farberow, 53, said that he had raised his son Josh at Malibu and that surfing the spot had helped him through many of life’s trials. He ended by proposing three things: Smile, praise others’ waves and help newcomers to the sport.

“If we can follow these rules,” Farberow said, “this place will take care of itself.”

So began The Surfrider Foundation’s fourth “Save the Malibu Day,” an annual event designed to clean the beach and focus public attention on the severe pollution problems that have transformed Malibu’s fragile ecology.

Participants, many of them children, learned about Chumash lore, the local history of surfing and the Malibu Creek watershed, a 109-square-mile area that has been heavily affected by urbanization.

“We want to show that a day at the beach really starts upstream,” said Jeff Duclos, co-chairman of Surfrider’s Malibu chapter, the cradle of the 26,000-member organization. “If you dump something at a shopping center in Agoura, it can have consequences downstream.”

The day started about 8:30 a.m. when 80 people formed a circle on the beach with their surfboards propped up behind them. After a cleansing ceremony, Mati Waiya, a Chumash priest, entered the ring wearing a leather loincloth and headdress of owl and hawk feathers.

Waiya, who led the group in a sunrise ritual, is a direct descendant of the Chumash, a tribe that relied on Malibu Lagoon and the nearby ocean for food. His ancestors called the area “Humaliwu.”

With the pungent scent of sage incense filling the air, Waiya invoked the spirit of the Chumash people and called for an end to the water pollution that has plagued Surfrider Beach and Malibu Lagoon for decades.

Scientists suspect that increasing urban runoff, local septic systems and water from the Tapia Waste Water Treatment Plant six miles up Malibu Creek are responsible for high bacteria levels at Surfrider Beach.

Over the years, tests have shown contamination from giardia and cryptosporidium, two pathogens from human or animal waste that can cause gastrointestinal diseases.

“We need to live with each other, not against,” Waiya said. “Let us work together in what we believe in. We are being threatened by things that weren’t part of life here.”

After Waiya’s closing words, Rabbi Nachum Shifren, who wrote the book “Surfing Rabbi, a Kabbalistic Quest for Soul,” delivered a second spiritual message connecting Yahweh and the beach where the movie “Gidget” was filmed. Then he quickly changed out of his black pants, tie and striped white shirt.

Shifren grabbed an old paddleboard and headed out to the healing circle, which had formed a few hundred yards from where glassy 2- to 4-foot waves peeled off with perfect form. The group was silhouetted by the sun and surrounded by sparkling water.

“This is cool, really cool,” said Emily Armstrong, 14, of Los Angeles, who came to the cleanup with a group of friends. Their green trash bags, bearing the slogan “Adopt a Beach,” soon were bulging with aluminum cans, food wrappers and plastic cups.

After the opening ceremonies, the event moved to Malibu’s Adamson House, a two-story Spanish Colonial now part of the state park system. Beneath a huge sycamore tree, participants heard reports from Surfrider, the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains, the California Wildlife Center and the UCLA Ocean Discovery Center.

On display were two full-size replicas of balsa surfboards made in the 1950s. One was shaped by Dale Velzy; the other by Matt Kivlin using an original 1950 template. Kivlin and Velzy are considered innovators in surfboard design during the postwar era.

The vintage sticks, along with an array of surf paintings by local artists, were part of a silent auction held Sunday evening on the grounds of the Adamson estate.

Surfrider officials hoped that the boards would fetch at least $4,500 each. They may have gotten it.

Shortly after the event began, the director of the television show “Baywatch” submitted a bid from Hawaii for the Kivlin “Malibu” board.

While waiting for the program’s lectures to begin, Jim Ganzer, 55, and his 4-year-old grandson J.J. nibbled on chicken burritos. Ganzer is a Surfrider member and artist who owned Jimmy Z’s, a surf-wear maker. He has surfed Malibu since 1957. That morning, blond J.J. caught his first wave.

“I didn’t go out much for about 10 years and then I came back,” Ganzer said. “I’ve come to realize I belong here. It’s really a spiritual place. I must be getting the vibes from the Chumash who used to live here.”