EPA Says Another Cabrillo Port Permit Will Be Delayed

CONTROVERSIAL PLAN—BHP Billition, the world’s largest mining conglomerate, seeks to anchor a floating liquefied natural gas terminal 13.8 miles off Malibu’s northwestern flank.

.Safety, Pollution and Operational Issues Dog the Controversial LNG Proposal

BY HANS LAETZ

For the third time, a key permit being sought by BHP Billiton for its proposed liquefied natural gas terminal off Malibu has been delayed by federal environmental regulators, dealing yet another setback to a project that opponents say has been poorly designed.

The Environmental Protection Agency last week announced that Cabrillo Port’s water discharge permits, which were on track to be granted this fall, must be resubmitted for another round of public comments.

The company has redesigned its boilers to reduce the amount of thermal pollution proposed for Cabrillo Port, but ocean experts said the newest version of the floating LNG regasification and storage unit plan would still warm up the ocean far beyond what California laws allow.

And in a related matter, the California Public Utilities Commission decided last week to allow foreign natural gas into the state’s distribution pipelines, even though regional and state smog regulators say “hot gas” will worsen air pollution problems in California.

The Australian mining conglomerate BHP Billiton proposes to anchor a floating, aircraft carrier-sized factory ship 13.8 miles off Malibu’s northwest end to receive shipments of liquefied natural gas. BHPB needs air pollution, water discharge, and overall land use permits from the U.S. and state governments to operate its proposed Cabrillo Port LNG terminal on public tidewaters lands.

All three of those permits have been delayed, some by nearly two years, as government regulators seek answers to safety, pollution and operational questions that have been raised by Malibu residents, and lawyers and scientists at the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara.

Last week, EPA officials in San Francisco revealed that BHPB had made major changes in its design for the ship’s cooling system, which was originally designed to dump 2.3 billion gallons of waste seawater, heated to 29 degrees warmer than the ambient seawater temperature, into the Pacific Ocean off Malibu every year.

The revised plan would recycle much of that hot water from shipboard machinery into the supercold LNG onboard the ship, but would still dump 61 million gallons of heated water per year into the Pacific. That water could carry unlimited amounts of chlorine and copper, and would still be about 20 degrees hotter than the ocean, environmentalists warned.

“BHP Billiton has made modifications to Cabrillo Port in response to stakeholder comments and in cooperation with regulatory authorities,” said BHPB spokesman Patrick Cassidy, via e-mail, from his Houston office. “This is further evidence that the public hearing process is working.”

But an Environmental Defense Center legal fellow, Amber Tyser, said the latest BHPB change in plans “looks like they are struggling to do anything they can to comply with the state laws that we said they need to comply with.”

Tyser noted that the new EPA rulings show that federal regulators agree with coastal advocates on claims made last year that state water pollution laws must be enforced on Cabrillo Port even though it would sit in federal waters.

“But the proposed permit still would let BHP Billiton discharge more than 60 million gallons per year of water, heated 20 degrees above the ocean temperature, and containing unlimited amounts of chlorine and copper,” she said. “It’s still a bad project in terms of water quality, air pollution, and global warming gases.”

Although BHP Billiton said it was able to reduce the amount of hot water discharges in reaction to local objections, Tyser said the redesign of Cabrillo Port’s engine cooling system this summer “looks like they’re making this up as they go along.” The EDC law office is funded by the California Coastal Protection Network, and has been supported by a $50,000 appropriation from the City of Malibu.

In its findings last week, the EPA proposed approval for Cabrillo Port to use natural gas-fired boilers to raise the supercold LNG temperature by 300 degrees, a process that would emit more than 261 tons of smog-causing chemicals per year just upwind of Malibu and the polluted Los Angeles air basin.
Two competing LNG terminals off Oxnard and Malibu have been announced this year, and those companies said they would use plain air to warm up the LNG in heat exchangers, instead of using Billiton’s pollution-causing boiler technology.

The air exchangers would theoretically generate only pure, distilled water as a byproduct, and coastal activists have said it is unclear why the EPA is not considering that system for Cabrillo Port.

EPA San Francisco is accepting public comments on this latest version of the water discharge permits until Oct. 23. Information about submitting comments is available at http://www.epa.gov/ region9/liq-natl-gas/.

Last week, the state Public Utilities Commission voted to allow foreign natural gas to be sold to California gas customers through the state’s natural gas pipelines.

Smog regulatory agencies like the South Coast Air Quality Management District and California Air Resources Board are worried that natural gas imports will burn hotter than domestic natural gas.

Smog agencies from the Fresno, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles air basins have gone on record as saying they cannot clean up their air if dirtier imported LNG is introduced into their areas.
The AQMD and other agencies have said they may challenge the PUC decision in court on the grounds that it violates federal and state clean air and environmental impact laws.

And in a late development, the California Coastal Protection Network has invited Malibu residents to a 10 a.m. event this Friday at Bluffs Park, where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides will announce that he will veto Cabrillo Port if he defeats incumbent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the November election.

The governor in the past has expressed support for the BHP Billiton venture, then distanced himself from those comments. His campaign press office did not return a phone call Monday.

LNG Opponents Reportedly Are Planning Press Conference Before Governor’s Signing Here of AB 32

Opponents of the controversial Cabrillo Port liquefied natural gas terminal were bisy scrambling to put together a press conference to take advantage of a just-announced visit by Governor Schwarzenegger to Malibu on Wednesday—between the time the Malibu Surfside News goes to press and is distributed—for a second ceremonial signing of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

Initial reports indicate that the press conference, which reportedly will include members of the Malibu City Council, who have unanimously voted in opposition to the floating terminal proposed by international mining giant B.H.P. Billiton for 13.8 miles off the northwestern Malibu coast, was tentatively scheduled for noon on Wednesday at Malibu Bluffs Park.

The governor’s first ceremonial signing of the landmark program of regulatory and market mechanisms to achieve quantifiable and cost-effective reductions of greenhouse gases, will take place in San Francisco in the morning.

Schwarzenegger will then fly to Malibu for a second ceremony that will be held in Brock House, the quarters of the president of Pepperdine University, located on the campus, at 2 p.m. The scenic Malibu backdrop is seen as the perfect location to reap maximum political advantage from and media coverage of the environmental breakthrough.

Cabrillo Port critics who operate under the assumption that the governor is leaning in favor of the project are expected to challenge what they perceive as grandstanding because he has declined to oppose the project.Schwarzenegger has been a travel guest of the Australian government and is viewed in the Australian media as supportive of the project. One Aussie media Cabrillo watcher has described the debate as between the Terminator—the governor’s movie persona—and James Bond, Cabrillo foe Pierce Brosnan’s former role.

Bluffs Park LNG Fundraiser Is ‘Star’ Studded Event

UNITED—Pre-film reception host Pierce Brosnan (left) and Roma Downey and Mark Burnett were among those at the Landon Center voicing their opposition to the three-football-field long,14-story tall Cabrillo Port floating LNG facility at last Friday’s fundraiser and call to arms.

Photo Credit MSN/Hans Laetz
FULL HOUSE—Malibu Bluffs Park was packed with residents who came to see “An Inconvenient Truth” and participate in the kick-off of the community’s anti-LNG campaign.

• Project Opponents Shows Solidarity As Cabrillo Port Permit Is Delayed Again

BY HANS LAETZ

Forget the celebrities, an unscripted celestial body of a different sort stole the show at Friday night’s anti-LNG rally, while more than a thousand Malibu residents were watching “An Inconvenient Truth” outdoors at Bluffs Park.

Ten minutes into the movie, just as Al Gore started explaining how thin the Earth’s atmosphere really is, a giant meteor streaked down from the northern sky, breaking into pieces above the outdoor movie screen.

The audience, at first stunned, applauded what could be interpreted as nature’s reminder of who is in charge.

Other stars may have been aligned Friday, as state officials disclosed that the Cabrillo Port permit, scheduled for action last summer, is still on indefinite hold because of the volume of comments and objections received from the public.

“We can’t even begin to estimate when we can begin the next phase of hearing,” a state environmental official said.

The movie showing, sponsored by Coastal Advocates-CCPN, the City of Malibu and the Malibu Surfside News, gathered an overflow crowd on the soccer field, and was perhaps the largest movie showing in Malibu history. It was the first anti-LNG event in the city, where civic activism against the plant is increasing.

“I don’t think Malibu has been as united on this as it has about anything since incorporation, or the sewer,” said longtime political activist Patt Healy at the prescreening fundraiser.

Pierce Brosnan, the former James Bond star and 20-year-Malibu resident, hosted the VIP reception and film, which drew paparazzi and Los Angeles TV stations to the anti-LNG event.

“When you look at Santa Barbara, and wonder how they got to live with those oil platforms, you understand our fight,” Brosnan said. He ticked off environmental problems the BHP Billiton project proposed for 13.8 miles off the Malibu coast could cause.

Local opposition to the Cabrillo Port project was fairly muted until last summer, when a public hearing into environmental impacts gathered a crowd of 350 screaming, unhappy Malibu residents. Since then, locals have peppered government agencies with written objections to the BHP Billiton energy terminal plan.

Nearly 13,000 objections, many of them form letters, were sent to the Environmental Protection Agency when it asked for public comment on air and water pollution permits that BHP Billiton has requested.

A separate, general permit for Cabrillo Port has been on indefinite hold for nearly two years, while state and federal officials seek answers from the company to scientific objections raised by local residents and lawyers and scientists working for the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center.

In Sacramento Monday, a state official confirmed that public hearings on that permit, originally scheduled for last summer and then next month, have once again slipped.

“The schedule depends on several things, such as getting the information that we’ve requested from BHP Billiton to respond to the comments we’ve gotten from Malibu and other sources,” said Dwight Sanders, an environmental planning division chief at the California State Lands Commission.

More than 1,400 specific points raised by the public last summer in regards to the 2,500-page revised environmental impact report have to be sorted out and answered, Sanders said, before the Lands Commission can hold public hearings.

“That delay is a reflection of the fact that there are tremendous problems, raised by both experts and residents, that this [project] would bring about,” said lead attorney Linda Krop at the Environmental Defense Center. “This project, had there been quick approval with no objections, could have had its permits approved in April of ’05.”

Krop estimated that the earliest that the final round of public hearings on the overall permits could be held is in December.

BHP Billiton first filed for permission to use federal and state tidelands for its LNG processing facility off Malibu in 2003, and told stockholders it expected to have permits by 2005 and begin operating in 2010. But the project has been beset by an incomplete application, federal questions about safety, coastal advocates saying it would be ugly and dirty, and news reports about its impact on the coast.

Trial for Alleged Ferrrari Crash Driver Slated to Start Oct. 17

LEAD PROSECUTOR—Deputy District Attorney Tamara Hall outlines the charges.

photo credit MSN Photos/Frank Lamonea
CONCENTRATION—Stefan Eriksson listens to a recitation of the counts he faces. If convicted, he could face up to 14 years in state prison.

BY ANNE SOBLE

A trial date has been set for the former Gizmondo executive and race car aficionado who allegedly crashed a rare million-dollar-plus Enzo Ferrari on Pacific Coast Highway Feb. 21 while traveling at a speed of more than 160 mph.

At a status conference hearing last week, Superior Court Judge Craig Veals set Tuesday, Oct. 17, for the start of Stefan Eriksson’s trial on three felony counts each of grand theft and embezzlement and two misdemeanor DUI charges (his blood alcohol registered over the legal limit) related to the crash.

An additional felony charge of possession of a gun by a convicted felon—Eriksson, 44, was convicted for counterfeiting in his native Sweden—will be tried separately.

The fraud charges are based on the alleged illegal importing into the United States of three high performance cars—including the totalled Ferrari—under lease from British financial institutions unaware of the transit. The vehicles, valued at close to $4 million, have been returned to the leaseholders.

Eriksson’s defense team consists of attorneys Jim Parkman, Martin Adams, and William White of The Cochran Firm of Birmingham, Alabama, a law firm founded by the late Johnnie Cochran, and California Criminal Law Specialist Alec Rose.

Speaking for Eriksson’s legal team, Rose said, “[The defense] is looking forward to vindicating Stefan...when the people hear what the case is really about, they will be surprised that this man was arrested in the first place.”

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office is represented by Deputy DA Tamara Hall.

Eriksson remains in jail without bail, a situation created by a hold placed by the federal immigration agency that is independently investigating possible irregularities in his entry into the U.S. last year. A pre-trial court hearing will take place on Friday, Sept. 29.

Meeting Slated on Draft LCP for Unincorporated Malibu Region

• Public Has Chance to Ask Questions about Changes

The public will have a chance to comment on the draft Local Coastal Program for the Santa Monica Mountains for the unincorporated area of Malibu at a community meeting sponsored by the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning on Wednesday, Sept. 27, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Alice Stelle Middle School in Calabasas.

The purpose of the session is described by county officials as a chance for planners to unveil the document during an open presentation and be available for the public to participate in a question and answer session. The staff will also be on hand to answer parcel specific questions.

On Oct. 25, the county Regional Planning Commission will hold a public hearing to take testimony from elected officials, government agencies and other interested parties. A second public hearing will be scheduled after that. The matter will also be heard by the Board of Supervisors and subsequently go to the California Coastal Commission for certification.

The county adopted the Malibu Land Use Plan for the Santa Monica Mountains that was certified by the CCC in 1986, but an implementation program was never adopted and the CCC continues to take responsibility for issuing coastal permits in this area. To complete the LCP, county planners prepared a draft revision of the plan and put together an implementation program.

The county conducted two public workshops last year in November and December and released a draft of the LCP in July. The public hearing draft document was released last month.

The review period for the public hearing draft started Aug. 28 and continues until Oct. 24.Comments can be made in writing to the staff prior to the Oct. 25 planning commission hearing.

For more information or to view the plan, log on to the planning department’s website at: planning.co.la.ca.us/smmlcp.

Upstream Homeowners Oblivious to Runoff Impact on Malibu

Photo credits MSN Photos/Hans Laetz
MOVING POLLUTION—Urban runoff, full of fertilizer and pet droppings, flows towards Surfrider Beach in an Agoura Hills storm channel.

WASTERS—Randal Orton examines a computerized map that shows nearly all of the residences in one Calabasas neighborhood are overusing water. Overirrigation causes urban runoff, which flows into Malibu Creek and is suspected of making surfers sick at Surfrider Beach.

• Water Agency Hopes to Convince Water Wasters that Pollution Must Be Checked

by Hanz Laetz

A disappointingly small percentage of upstream residents are signing up for a program to reduce flows from lawn sprinklers leaking into Malibu Creek, water district officials say, setting back a pilot program to reduce chronic water pollution at Surfrider Beach.

The plan by the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District is to help reduce the chronic water pollution problem at Malibu’s Surfrider Beach by eliminating as much urban runoff water as possible in Malibu Creek during dry seasons, said Randal Orton, a resource conservation administrator at the Calabasas-based water and sewer utility.

“It is exceedingly difficult to get people to change their habits voluntarily,” Orton said.
Armed with studies that show 58 percent of the homeowners in the district’s Malibu Creek watershed area are overwatering their yards, scientists are worried that the resultant chronic runoff can carry fertilizer, dog droppings and bacteria into the Malibu Creek watershed.

The water district sent letters to the 550 worst-offending homes out of the 20,000 residences in the district this summer, offering a free water use survey and up to $350 in reimbursements for repairing leaky irrigation systems. But only a handful of the homeowners responded.

“We have a plan B, which is to start knocking on doors,” Orton said. If that doesn’t work, plan C is city ordinances against dry-weather runoff into a curb, something the City of Santa Monica has enacted to reduce urban runoff there, Orton said.

Although tests show the Las Virgenes runoff is fairly clean, it adds flow to the creek at times when it naturally should dry up. Las Virgenes is under government pressure to prevent dry weather flows in the creek, which adds water to Malibu lagoon and causes occasional flushes of dirty water into the ocean right in the middle of a world-famous surf break.

“It isn’t that the runoff water itself is polluted, it’s that it is a medium for picking up other things,” said Jeff Reinhardt, a water district customer service manager.

The district is part owner of the Tapia sewage plant, which during wet weather sends highly cleaned sewage effluent into the creek. Although that water is virtually drinkable, the fact that any effluent at all is in the creek has some downstream users very upset.

That, in turn, has cast Las Virgenes as a bad neighbor, despite having the most expensive, most effective sewage plant operating in Los Angeles County.

Using computers, weather sensors, and individual household meter readings, the district has drawn detailed maps that show where street runoff can be expected in its service area of Agoura Hills, Westlake Village and Calabasas. Orton said his staff then goes out and collects evidence of constant water runoff, such as stained pavement and algae growing on curbs.

Overuse of watering is related to the amount of water running into the street, studies show, Orton said.

Offending homeowners are offered the free services of a landscaping expert who will measure soil moisture, look at timers and examine sprinklers. Repair costs up to $350 are reimbursed by the water district, which will also pay additionally for the installation of automatic sprinkler computers that sense plant needs.

“It’s a great deal,” said Reinhardt. “We’re offering to buy people the equivalent of a Prius water controller.” The water experts hope door-to-door visits to the 550 homes can increase participation in the pilot project. “We may be victims of our own success, making water the least-expensive commodity that you can buy,” Orton said. “But the upstream cities are on the hook to clean this urban runoff up, and we have to take steps now.”

Ocean Protection

BY ANNE SOBLE

Election politics are in full swing in California, and if that results in increased efforts to clean up the ocean, we’ll take it with whatever baggage comes along on the campaign trail. There might be a few caveats, but the need to address the global concerns of coastal pollution defies partisan labeling, except by fringe elements who cannot see politics any other way. Experts from a cross-section of disciplines are gathered this week at the California and the World Ocean ’06 Conference in Long Beach to address how nations can implement the universal responsibility to assure the sanctity of the seas. Timed accordingly, the governor has just signed seven bills that can help protect the ocean and enhance the state’s water quality. “California has a proud history and tradition of leading the nation in protecting the ocean,” Gov. Schwarzenegger said at the signing, but this self-praise shouldn’t ignore the fact that Californians can also demonstrate rank indifference, if not callous disregard, for the consequences of the impact of wasteful water usage and ineffective water protection policies on the coast.

These new measures will come at no small cost to industry, small businesses and individuals throughout the state, but the alternative to being willing to pay this price is too grim to be acceptable. Among the tools that will help to effect change is a requirement that water quality control agencies make enforcement information available on the Internet and require local and regional coordination on water quality issues and public awareness of rates of compliance. The need for funding this increased ocean protection in California drives the campaign for the passage of Proposition 84—the Clean Water and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2006. The $5.4 billion bond measure on the November ballot provides funding for safe drinking water, improved local water supply reliability, strengthened flood protection and preservation of parks, lakes, rivers, beaches and bays, as well as the ocean and coastline. The state’s 1100 miles of coastline and a population that will soon surpass 50 million deserve no less. Adding to this is the recently announced tri-state Pacific governors’ partnership that takes regionalism to the next level. If states can work together, then nations can work together. It might even become a habit.

Small Plane Makes Emergency Landing in Trancas Field

PHOTO CREDIT, HANS LAETZ
MAYDAY—An airplane that lost its engine over Malibu Park crash-landed on a field west of Trancas Canyon Road last week. The airplane, built in 1950, is one of dozens that have been plying the skies above beaches under federal aviation rules that permit such flights.

PHOTO CREDIT, HANS LAETZ
OK—Any landing you can walk from is a good landing, goes the old aviation saying, and the 22-year-old pilot of the banner-towing airplane that crash-landed in Trancas last week had even better news for his boss: the plane was not wrecked.at lost its engine over Malibu Park crash-landed on a field west of Trancas Canyon Road last week. The airplane, built in 1950, is one of dozens that have been plying the skies above beaches under federal aviation rules that permit such flights.

• Incident Raises Questions about Safety of Some of the Banner Towing Craft Now in Use

BY HANS LAETZ

A 56-year-old airplane towing an aerial advertising banner made an emergency landing in a field near Trancas Canyon Road last week when its engine suffered a major oil leak, coating the windshield with oil. No one was injured when the plane coasted down to one of the few vacant lots suitable for landing along Malibu’s 27 miles of mountainous coastline.

The 1950 Piper PA-18 Cub is owned by a Florida company that has lost at least two aerial advertising planes to crashes in the last two years.

In last Wednesday’s incident, pilot Jaime Escobar told Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies he was towing a beer company banner ad along the coast when he noticed a sudden oil pressure loss, and oil on the windshield. The pilot said he released the banner near Point Dume and coasted west past Trancas Canyon Road, landing the plane on the large plowed field just west of the Trancas gas station at about 3:15 p.m.

“I feathered the engine, and came in at 40 knots (46 miles per hour),” the 22-year-old pilot from Miami told Sheriff’s Aero Bureau deputies, after they arrived at the scene via helicopter. Other than a slightly bent propeller and a film of oil from the frozen, inoperative engine, the plane did not appear seriously damaged, deputies said.

FAA officials arrived on the scene at sunset for a brief inspection. The plane’s wings were removed, and they and the fuselage left Malibu on a truck.

The 50-by-100-foot Coors beer banner, which had been dropped off Paradise Cove, could not be found and likely sank near Little Dume Beach, lifeguards said.

The tail registration number, written in 2-inch-high letters on the plane’s rudder, shows it registered to Van Wagner Aerial Media of Hollywood, Fla. The company’s web site lists offices in New York City. Its president there did not return numerous phone calls and emails from a reporter.

Last summer, another Van Wagner banner-towing Piper PA-18 Cub suffered engine failure over the ocean off the Palos Verdes Peninsula. It crashed into the Pacific Ocean, the pilot swam ashore uninjured, and the plane was recovered.

National Transportation Safety Board engineers found that this plane had a piston disconnect from a push-rod, causing engine failure.

Van Wagner’s most serious accident claimed the life of a pilot in Pembroke Pines, Fla., in late 2004, when an aircraft built in 1957 lost its engine due to what the NTSB called substantial debris in the fuel system. The federal report said the pilot had reported a sputtering engine to a maintenance chief, but flew the plane anyway.The after-crash analysis said accumulated “glob-like material” and rust was found in the fuel pumps and lines of that plane, a former crop-duster.

Last year, a helicopter owned by a different ad firm crashed at Long Beach Airport when its banner got stuck in the tail rotor. A banner-plane owned by a third company crashed in Riverside County in 2005. A review of federal flight safety records by the Malibu Surfside News found 16 serious banner-aircraft crashes across the nation in the past two years. Lesser incidents, such as the Malibu crash-landing last week, are not investigated by the NTSB, and therefore are not included in that total.

The regional spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said aerial banner towing airplanes and helicopters are specifically allowed by federal air regulations, subject to only one broad rule: “The operations cannot occur over densely populated areas, in congested airways or near a busy airport where passenger transport operations are conducted,” Ian Gregor said.

Crowds on beaches across the nation are frequently targeted by banner plane companies. Many Malibu residents say flights over the city are more numerous this summer than in years past. Van Wagner’s web site boasts that its “beach networks maximize coverage by developing networks that incorporate some of the world’s most desirable beach communities, that are otherwise difficult to reach.”

Although Malibu’s coastline is a designated general aviation route, federal officials do not consider Malibu skies to be congested airspace, or the area densely populated. Banner planes are also routinely allowed to fly past Los Angeles International and Santa Monica airports, and over the Rose Bowl, Dodger Stadium and other very densely populated areas

“Those damn things are really loud,” said Malibu City Council member Jeff Jennings, who said he has noticed a sizeable increase in the number of overflights this year. “They are approaching the annoyance threshold on the level of loud motorcycles.”

SMMC Attorney Engages in War of Words with City Council Members

• Called Elitists and Threatened with Litigation over Plan

BY BILL KOENEKER

It wasn’t when an attorney representing the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy posed the threat of litigation over the Malibu City Council unanimously approving a motion to encourage the California Contract Cities Association to oppose the Conservancy’s public works plan that caused the greatest ire of some council members, it was when the SMMC lawyer called city officials elitists and accused them of making efforts to keep visitors out of the mountains and Malibu.

“It will widen the rift between the city and the Conservancy. You will widen the scope of the fight,” said A. Catherine Norian, who told council members the action they were about to take would enhance the notion of the exclusivity of municipal officials and this was the best evidence yet of the downside of local control. “The motion is ill advised and was initiated by a small group of homeowners.”

“Your remarks are most offensive. There is nothing elitist [about this action]. What we don’t want is special privilege,” said Councilmember Andy Stern. “To suggest that this is a way of keeping people out of the parks is offensive.”

Mayor Ken Kearsley said the comments were fallacious. “We invite 10 million visitors per year,” he said, explaining that the city’s Charmlee Park hosts inner city children and the disabled and offers a much more authentic experience “than six houses that were illegally built.”

The reference is to the former residence of Barbra Streisand, a multi-house compound where the SMMC maintains headquarters and offices and wants to provide a handicapped park and camping experience for the disabled.

“I don’t know who gave you your marching orders, but it is irresponsible what you said. You don’t win me over with your diatribe of hate,” added the mayor.
Councilmember Jeff Jennings said he wasn’t as offended by the remarks since it is the strategy used by other entities anytime the city opposes what the agency is doing. “We are called elitists,” he said.

Jennings said there was no effort on the part of the Conservancy to sit down with the city and discuss the plan. “We should have been discussing how the public works plan is not consistent with the Local Coastal Program and how that would not get changed,” he said without city participation.

Councilmember Sharon Barovsky said she was also not offended by the remarks because she is inured to being called elitist. She said her main concern is that the citizenry would want to hold municipal officials accountable. Barovsky said democracy becomes divisive when people who make the rules are unaccountable.

The plan calls for overnight camping in residential areas, trail acquisition and various other recreational facilities, including extensive event uses at Ramirez Canyon Park.

The entire plan would be submitted to the California Coastal Commission for approval in its entirety rather than having the city or a local entity approve permits on a project by project basis.The SMMC and the Ramirez Canyon Preservation Association, the local homeowner’s group, have been battling for years over the validity of activities at the former residential compound that was donated to the Conservancy.

This week’s action was taken by the city after it was revealed that mediation between the HOA and the Conservancy broke down, talks are at a standstill and the matter is headed back into court.

City Attorney Christi Hogin, in her report, noted how now might be thet time for municipalities “to determine whether these public works plans may be used in this manner, and if so, what role, if any, the affected local government will play. All member cities of the CCCA recognize the importance of maintaining local control, especially where state agencies seek to usurp the authority of the local, elected city councils.”

The controversy over the public works plan has raged since the Ramirez Canyon homeowners and their attorneys revealed the hastily drawn up plans of the SMMC and its joint powers agency, the Mountains Recreation Conservation Authority several months ago.

The residents insist the plan will impose an independent planning area encompassing several square miles within the city limits and impose a new set of land use regulations not currently found on the city’s books.The city attorney said the plan has the direct effect to skip the Local Coastal Program and therefore skip the City of Malibu.

Steven Amerikaner, an attorney who represents the homeowners, told the council that the behavior witnessed was why their action was needed. “There is a lack of accountability. It is a regional agency that fairly does what it well wishes. The genesis of this dispute is a good example. The Conservancy said it didn’t need a permit. A judge said yes. It didn’t stop the Conservancy. They don’t follow the rules,” he concluded.

Malibu Country Club Is Sold to New Investor Group

PHOTO CREDITMSN/Frank Lamonea

NEW OWNERSHIP—The Malibu Country Club, designed in the late 1970s by William Francis Bell Jr. to be “evocative of the golf landmarks built at the turn of the 20th century,” came under controversy in the mid-80s when owners announce plans to develop homes around the course. Speaking for the new owners, Malibu Associates, club general manager Dan Meherin says that a residential/resort community “is an option that is being explored..”

Sale Prompts Speculation about Plans of Golf Course’s New Ownership

BY BILL KOENEKER

The Malibu Country Club located at the headwaters of Trancas Canyon was recently sold to a group of investors for about $30 million, according to published reports.

Malibu Associates, a newly formed LLC, purchased the 18-hole course from Fuji International Inc. in April. In turn, the investors hired Greenway Golf Management to run the mountaintop facility, according to the club’s General Manager Dan Meherin, who said he would stay on under the new management.

“The new owners and the management are fantastic. Those who haven’t played here for awhile should come back. They are making improvements to the golf course,” he said.

When asked about rumors concerning plans for building a residential/resort community around the golf course, Meherin said the investors have plans for improving the course and that is one of many options being explored. “They are reviewing a number of different scenarios,” he added.

A previous owner of the course, The Church of Liberty, a Japan-based organization, caused an uproar in western Malibu when it announced plans in the mid-1980s to develop homes around the golf course.

Malibu West homeowners felt particularly threatened because of all of the stormwater runoff, potential flooding and other problems they believed could find their way downstream via Trancas Canyon Creek past their homes—some of which are located on the banks of the stream.

Additionally, federal officials were concerned because, at the time, the National Park Service was attempting to acquire thousands of acres in the nearly pristine canyon downstream of the course for inclusion into the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Today most of the canyon is owned by the NPS, which exerted some influence over the golf course when it needed to renew its Conditional Use Permit from the county several years ago. Park Service officials wanted assurances that runoff from the golf course, which flows into the canyon stream, would be free from fertilizers, pesticides and other potential pollutants.

Designed by golf course architect William Francis Bell Jr. in the late 1970s, the Malibu Country Club is described as evocative of the golf landmarks built at the turn of the 20th Century. Nestled in the rolling hills of the Santa Monica Mountains, the public links provide the feel of a private or resort course at daily fees.

The Conscience of Captivity

PHOTO CREDITMonterey Bay Aquarium/Randy Wilder
MAGNIFICENCE IN MOTION—The Monterey Bay Aquarium placed this young male white shark on exhibit this week. It survived hook and line capture several miles offshore in Santa Monica Bay and spent from Aug. 14-31 in the MBA 4-million-gallon holding pen off Malibu to determine whether it might adapt to captivity as part of the aquarium’s Outer Bay exhibit. The shark is expected to draw the same more than a million people who flocked to see the female shark that survived six months of captivity before her release in March 2005. Some of the proceeds from the record attendance went to shark research.

ANNE SOBLE

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is justifiably proud of the shark study data that has accrued from its field studies of juvenile and adult great white sharks. The growing number of sharks with data-collecting tags is now a meaningful survey sample size. The data being gathered offer new insights into the behavior of great whites, particularly their far-flung travel habits. The potent field data notwithstanding, researchers do differ about the validity of data based on animals in artificial settings, particularly creatures such as the great white who are inveterate travelers. The question is not quite as simple as can a laboratory setting accurately reflect real world conditions? Put it in a human context. Is what one can or cannot learn from isolating humans for field study fairly comparable to forced isolation of what are perceived as less analytical species? Predators, of which humans are at the top of the chain, are part of such a complex natural process that constraints and contrivances always appear to miss the mark. The arbitrariness of the shark capture process seems to pre-limit the scientific validity of ensuing observations, but the seeing is believing component still tends to win out.

One of the stated goals of a captive shark exhibit is to change how people think about sharks. But with a mass media too eager to fall back on traditional stereotyping—this shark is already being called “Baby Jaws” in some reports—and, despite the statistical probability of shark attacks versus dog bites or any other human-animal confrontation, emphasize the danger. This underlying insensitivity is no less evident in some of the inhumane and offensive entertainment related to animals, such as the work of the late, so-called Crocodile Hunter who met a fate that some critics of his work might have deemed singularly appropriate. Although no one wishes a similar fate for any of the great white’s handlers, some hope that this shark will not have to batter his face against the tank walls in frustration as long as his predecessor did. Perhaps he will catch on quickly that if he ignores the pre-planned menus and opts to do what nature intended him to do with his tankmates, he’ll taste freedom sooner than in six months. Tagged and swimming free, he may not sell as many T-shirts and key chains, but the data will help bring us all closer to understanding these magnificent works of natural selection and survival. The sharks, the elephants, the large primates and the big cats who are captured for our entertainment are living, but they are not alive.

State Legislature Passes Landmark Pollution Bill While Assembly Panel Backs Off on LNG Needs Assessment

• Area Supervisor Urges Pulling Plug on Local Project
BY HANS LAETZ

California’s Legislature has passed a landmark greenhouse gas reduction bill, which may make it harder for an Australian company to locate a floating liquefied natural gas terminal off the Malibu coast, depending on how the new law is implemented, observers said.

The passage of California’s groundbreaking AB32 made headlines around the world, and comes in the same week that a proposed law to place all five proposed LNG terminals into a competitive licensing process died in Sacramento.

Also last week, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky demanded that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pull the plug on BHP Billiton’s proposed LNG terminal off Malibu, on the grounds of heavy new pollution, risk of explosion, and the heavy toll it would take on the Malibu coast’s scenic beauty.

“It’s ridiculous for us to spend millions protecting and preserving the coast off Malibu, and then allow some company to just place an industrial use right in the middle of this scenic area,” Yaroslavsky said Friday.

In his letter, the county supervisor blasted an official study that said chances of an explosive fire would be limited to an area within 7.3 miles of the ship’s storage tanks. “(It) fails to evaluate the impact of a release of natural gas from all three LNG tanks simply because it deems that event ‘unlikely’,” his letter said.

“Given the fact that this facility would likely be a potential terrorism target, all worst case scenarios ... must be evaluated before 73 million gallons of LNG are located just offshore of the Malibu coastline.”

Yaroslavsky also said Cabrillo Port would be just as high, and 17 times longer, than the average oil platform in the Santa Barbara channel. “The presence of a permanently-fixed industrial fixture - even one that looks like a ship – is fully inconsistent with the natural vistas found off the Malibu coastline,” he wrote.

A BHP Billiton spokesman in Houston would not comment on extensive quotes from the Yaroslavsky letter that were emailed to him. “I can’t comment on this as the letter wasn’t directed to me or BHP Billiton, I don’t know the content, nor the full context of the remarks,” said Patrick Cassidy in an email.

Last week’s passage of the greenhouse gas bill in Sacramento has legislators, industry analysts and coastal advocates wondering how the Malibu LNG terminal could be affected.

The Cabrillo Port LNG terminal, 13.8 miles off the Malibu coast, would generate an amount of greenhouse gas and pollutants equal to as much as 5.9 percent of California’s current greenhouse gas discharges, according to a global climate expert who filed comments on behalf of the Environmental Defense Center’s effort to prevent the project from being built.

The California law, if signed by the governor, would require existing industries to roll back total greenhouse gas emissions to 1990s levels by the year 2012. The California Air Resources Board and Public Utilities Commission will have to draw up regulations to implement that, and one question is how LNG imports and their huge greenhouse gas costs will fit in.

“I’d be interested to see how this is all going to shake out,” said local Assemblymember Fran Pavley. “No one is going to be investing in a new coal plant, for example, if there are limits on carbon dioxide emissions.”

And since the new California law affects all energy sources delivering to state residents from out-of-state locations, AB 32 might require LNG importers to consider the entire worldwide LNG supply chain pollution issue, making them cost-prohibitive.

“I would predict that this bill will make energy costs in California much higher, and there may not be the political will to see that through” said Bill Cooper, executive director for the Center for LNG, a trade group in Washington.

“But it’s hard to tell at this early time, as the details of the implementation will be left to the Air Resources Board,” Cooper said. One possibility is that the advantages of a Cabrillo Port-sized LNG terminal, which could supply fuel for electricity for 3.4 million households, may cause less greenhouse emissions than other energy sources, making it a better solution in balance, he said.

The defeat of SB 426 in an Assembly committee last week means that the five LNG terminals being proposed for within 50 miles of Malibu will not face a needs assessment, or comparative evaluation to determine which is cleaner or safer, said Susan Jordan, executive director of the California Coastal Protection Network. And since the LNG plant near Malibu will emit considerably-more air pollution than other projects, that is bad news, she said.

 Both the BHP Billiton Cabrillo Port floating industrial terminal and the Mitsubishi SES proposal in Long Beach pose what I consider to be unacceptable impacts,” Jordan said.

In a related matter, the Malibu City Council next week will consider an ordinance renewing the municipality’s fight against Cabrillo Port.

Malibu has already contributed $50,000 to the group of lawyers and scientists opposing the project, and a community fundraising drive is attempting to match a $100,000 grant from Malibu Local Land Conservancy to pay for research and legal work to block state and federal permits for the $650 million BHPB terminal, which could be worth $40 billion in gas exports for Australia’s largest corporation.

A public fundraising event, featuring the free showing of the film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” is set for 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 15, at Malibu Bluffs Park.

Malibu’s new resolution notes that while LNG transport ships have a discharge-free record, LNG terminals do not, and that there have been 13 large accidents at LNG terminals in recent years.

Last week the EPA said it would soon release scientific comments by 12,000 California residents and associations, the vast majority of whom oppose an EPA permit for Cabrillo Port’s 270 tons of smog-causing chemical gas emissions.