Lumber Yard Center Issued Notice of Violation by Regional Water Board

• Complex Exceeded Standards for Effluent Composition

BY BILL KOENEKER

The executive officer of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a notice of violation last month for wastewater problems at the Malibu Lumber Yard mall.
The upscale shopping center is owned by the City of Malibu and was developed and is operated by Weintraub Financial Services.
RWQCB executive officer Tracy Egoscue made the announcement at a board meeting on July 16. She commented in her executive report. “During the month of April, the dischargers violated important effluent limits for nitrogen and phosphorus, as well as several other waste discharge requirements,” Egoscue told the panelists.
The NOV directed compliance with all limits and provisions of the WDR and documentation of corrective action by July 15, 2009.
“The applicant Wientraub Financial is putting together the required report,” said Malibu City Manager Jim Thorsen. When asked what that contained, he said, “It is being prepared.”
The commercial center located in the Civic Center area opened for business in April 2009. Under the WDR adopted by the board in December 2008, the dischargers, who are both the city and Weintraub, were allowed to discharge a maximum flow of 17,000 gallons per day. Since no restaurants have opened yet, as well as some other businesses, the “native” flow from on-site activities during April was only 300 gallons per day to 600 gallons per day, according to the RWQCB staff.
“However, the discharger did accept 90,000 gallons of sewage from off-site businesses during April,” the report notes.
Thorsen explained that the added flow was for testing. He said the system was in testing mode and there needed to be enough of a flow to make sure the system is operating at top peak performance. “It is a complicated, high efficiency, state-of-the-art system. It is to make sure it is flowing [properly],” the city manager added.
Thorsen was asked if the board had been informed in advance of what is being described as testing when it considered its NOV. “It was technically out of compliance. I concur it doesn’t make a lot of sense. There are always a few tweaks during testing,” was his response.
This is not the only time the Lumber Yard has been discussed at regional board meetings during the delivery of the executive report. At the May 7 board meeting, members were told the information presented to RWQCB from the dischargers contained “significant deviation from the material required in the WDR.”
The laundry list of deficiencies includes the groundwatering plan, which the RWQCB staff reported only identifies wells under the leachfield, not downgradient of the irrigation at the building or in Legacy Park. “The groundwater program is not sufficiently detailed to include a design for continuous monitoring,” the report noted.
The operations and maintenance plan does not include any mention of irrigation. “The only option described for the operator is to truck water offsite in the event that the disposal capacity is not available,” the report goes on to state.
The water conservation plan assumes some usages and does not include any additional detail about tenant space, “despite ongoing construction of those spaces. The plan and lease do not contain any specific method of accounting tenant water usage or practices.”
“The ultraviolet equivalency report does not constitute a measure of equivalency and in fact, it does not represent a portion of a Final Title 22 report which must be approved by the California Department of Public Health before discharge can begin,” the report concludes.