Enviros Blast Water Board at Workshop

• Sacramento Accused of Crafting ‘Failure’ Regulations

BY BILL KOENEKER

The workshop conducted last week in Malibu by the State Water Resources Control Board to gather public input on proposed changes to state-wide regulation of septic systems may have been one in a series of 11 conducted across the state, but it was apparently like no other, when a sponsor of the legislation mandating the changes spoke.
Mark Gold, the president of Heal the Bay, the environmental group, who is considered by Sacramento as the leading sponsor of the legislation AB 885 authored by then Assemblymember Hannah-Beth Jackson, directing the changes to the water code, denounced the attempts by the water board to implement the measure.
“This is designed to fail and will not improve impaired waters,” said Gold, who blasted Sacramento bureaucrats on the standards about to be imposed on septic users, because he said it failed to target the worst offenders.
The Heal the Bay head claimed some of the regulations that the water board wants to require for septic users, such as when there is a domestic water well on a property, that well would have be monitored every five years and the test results sent to Sacramento, were a “deal breaker.”
“It seems like this was designed to upset everybody,” he said.
Gold explained that he had personally helped write the bill with certain issues in mind.
He said the main concern was how septic systems could be monitored and regulated when they are near impaired bodies of water.
The issue is particularly relevant to Malibu, since Malibu Creek, Malibu Lagoon and north Santa Monica Bay beaches are declared impaired bodies of water.
Gold complained that even the Environmental Impact Report required to assess the proposed regulations bears very little relationship to what the stakeholders agreed upon. “This cannot regulate. It is a failure,” he added.
The board is scheduled to conduct a formal hearing on Feb. 9 in Sacramento.
At the outset of the meeting, Assistant Division Chief James George Giannopoulos, who conducted the workshop, set out the requirements of the law and how they would be enforced.
All septic tank owners would have to have their septic tanks inspected for solids accumulations every five years.
Any septic tank owner operating a system within 600 feet of an impaired water body would have to have the system inspected by a qualified professional to determine whether the septic system is contributing to the impairment of the water body.
There is also a list of new regulations proposed for the construction of new septic systems.
Giannopoulos said a roof-top count estimated 800 homes near Malibu Creek that might qualify for the 600-foot restrictions and 1563 homes that were estimated to be impacted by the proposed 600-foot requirement along north bay beaches.
“It would require certain actions of the septic owners. They would have four years to upgrade their system [if found faulty],” he added.
The division manager said the board staff estimated costs between $35,000 and $45,000 to upgrade or replace a faulty system, or compliance could be achieved by hooking up to a sewer system.
When it came time for the public to testify there was a wide divergence of opinion.
Tom Ford, the director of Santa Monica Baykeeper, stated there were serious problems with the current septic systems that are polluting the waters. He did not enter any evidence, but rather suggested the proof was that Baykeeper was currently suing the City of Malibu in two separate legal actions. “We are not trying to persecute. We are trying to protect folks,” he said.
Norm Haynie, who is a member of the city’s Wastewater Advisory Committee, said the installation of new systems mandated by Malibu “are not septic systems at all.”
They are mini-plants, which include disinfection and tertiary-treated effluent, according to Haynie, who disputed many of the allegations made by critics, saying the city does not allow septics to leach into sand because the municipality requires a sea wall. “The point of sale ordinance takes care of older homes,” he added. “I know of no study that links effluent of septic systems to the lagoon or creek. There is pollution in the lagoon and creek, but we don’t know where it is coming from.”
Former Mayor Walt Keller said, “I resent the order from your board. I think the city is doing a great job.”
“We are learning the city has no regulation of porta-potties. Maybe we should all get one of them,” he quipped.
Malibu Road resident Dan Hillman painted a more ominous picture, suggesting the state agency wanted to squeeze residents to the point where Malibuites would be forced into sewering.
He suggested that the culprits have been overlooked and insisted the state agency investigate how certain areas where there are sewer outfalls have become the pollution hot spots, such as Marie Canyon near where the Malibu Mesa plant is located, and the Tapia plant, which still, at certain times of the year, is allowed to discharge effluent into Malibu Creek.
“For the most part, AB 885 is another attempt to sewer Malibu. Septic tanks are not a health hazard,” Hillman said.
Some experts who testified, including Larry Young, a former city staffer, saw problems in administering the regulations and suggested the estimated prices for Malibu for making repairs or replacing systems “were way too low.”
The city’s current environmental health inspector echoed the same sentiments. “We are talking about up to $200,000 for the beachfront lot improvements,” said Andrew Shelter.
The workshops will continue, and comments on the proposed regulations and EIR will be taken until the formal hearing on Feb. 9.
The timeline calls for implementation of the regulations by sometime in July 2010. The legislation was adopted and passed in 2000.