• The Publisher’s Notebook •

Watery Permutations

BY ANNE SOBLE

No one wishes more adversity to those who live in the recent wildfire areas where denuded hillsides are vulnerable to further damage by heavy downpours, but the current rainfall is a cause for holiday thanks. Although it would take numerous, strong storms in rapid succession to make a dent in the state’s current drought conditions and reduce the areawide wildfire danger, that meteorological scenario might extract too high a price from areas that burned this year and last.
As we sit down to express Thanksgiving gratitude with family and friends, the rain is a reminder that, despite our exponentially expanding technological capability and our myth of human dominance of the universe, nature is the arbiter of all life. Members of our species appear reluctant to accept, despite one unsuccessful clash with the forces of nature after another, that they are not the ones who are in charge.
The potential for another year of drought is not just the concern of the farmer and the rancher. It affects everyone, as no part of California is immune to wildfire. Until the fire danger that is now a constant presence is reduced, thousands of lives will be upended with a frequency predicated on uncertainty. Humans have a responsibility to plan and prepare for the whatever happens, but nature always has the last word.
Yet water is not just a natural phenomenon, it’s also a political one, as last week’s Regional Water Quality Control Board demonstrated. It’s a toss-up whether this approach is Machiavellian or Swiftian, but it is tempting to ask whether the City of Malibu isn’t making a major policy blunder by not letting the RWQCB take over the Civic Center wastewater issue.
The board certainly couldn’t be able to apply a one-solution-fits-all approach, and try to sewer all of Malibu. If central Malibu requires a project, let the state propose it, and let the state defend it in court.
This strategy might temporarily slow some development, but a state-of-the-art system could support added density, as well as control its location. This might result in a superior wastewater solution to anything a city could afford, or should have to, as the pollution is a regional problem that calls for a regional solution. Everyone could then focus on whether the proposal accomplishes what we all want—the cleanup of Malibu Lagoon and adjacent beaches.