City of Malibu Hit with Surprise Litigation
over Role in Ocean Pollution
• Group Alleges that Hundreds of
Illegal Discharge Pipes Dot Local Hills and Beaches•
A pair of non-profit agencies is getting
ready to sue the City of Malibu for allowing water pollution to
flow into the ocean, a potentially-costly lawsuit that could
ultimately put a federal judge in charge of local septic tanks
and storm drainage pipes.
One of the groups charges that between
500-700 illegal discharge pipes dot the hills and beaches of
Malibu, each and every one of them regularly spewing washing
machine discharge, dishwasher waste and other illegal contents
into Santa Monica Bay.
But that sweeping charge is not
substantiated or documented in the formal notice that the group
Santa Monica Baykeeper served Wednesday against Malibu and the
County of Los Angeles. Rather, Baykeeper and the Natural
Resource Defense Council claim Malibu has allowed pollution to
flow into the ocean in three storm drains at Escondido Beach
and at Malibu Lagoon.
The groups also complain that the city has
not yet won permission to let rainwater flow into a protected
section of Santa Monica Bay. But a spokeswoman for the State
Water Quality Control Board said Malibu can’t be given a
permit because the state has yet to write the policies on
granting such permits, and won’t be finished until at
least early next year.
Baykeeper and NRDC also blame Malibu for
high levels of cyanide, sulfates and fecal bacteria in Malibu
Creek, which drains more than 200 square miles of Ventura and
Los Angeles counties and about two square miles in the City of
Malibu. The local municipality is investing over $35 million in
the “Legacy Park” water filtration project,
designed to remove all pollutants from parking lots and streets
along the Malibu Creek watershed at its southern terminus.
Well and good, said Santa Monica Baykeeper
director Tracy Egosku. But only the threat of the lawsuit will
get Malibu to put its money where its mouth is, and follow
through on promises to raise taxes to begin aggressive policing
of alleged wastewater abuses, she said.
“There are 500 to 700 pipes in the
City of Malibu that are carrying water from washing machines,
dishwashers and other illegal sources into the ocean,”
Egosku said. “These pipes are all carrying runoff other
than rainwater, and, even when it is not raining, they are
flowing.”
Baykeeper joined the Natural Resource
Defense Council Wednesday in serving a notice that Malibu
illegally allows tainted street runoff into the ocean, that the
city is responsible for the Malibu Creek pollution levels, and
that the city has not accurately reported to the state its
alleged inability to meet those laws.
City officials reacted with incredulity,
both at the claim of at least 500 illegal pollution sources,
and to the fact that the city has been actively working with
state agencies and several environmental groups to solve
regional pollution issues like Malibu Creek. The city is also
credited by some environmental activists as having the
most-proactive water pollution policies in the county.
“I sit on committees with Tracy and I
am surprised she would claim that about the city,” said
Mayor Jeff Jennings. “If that were happening, and Malibu
residents were walking down a beach and saw something flowing
out of a pipe, our phones would be ringing off the
hook.”
“They may be talking steps but it is
too little,” Egosku said. “These pipes are there,
polluting, and the city was put on notice in 2005 and 2006 that
this is not acceptable nor legal.”
The complaint notes that the city and
county are prohibited from allowing any wastewater at
all—including storm runoff from streets—to flow
into the ocean from Latigo Canyon west past the county line,
which was designated an “Area of Special Biological
Significance” by the state legislature decades ago.
Although Egosku claims the State Water
Quality Control Board told Malibu it was illegally allowing
stormwater to drain into the bay, those letters actually told
the city and county they needed to apply for permission to
allow that runoff to flow into the ocean.
A spokesperson for the SWQCB in Sacramento
said the stormwater runoff rules have yet to be written, making
it impossible for Malibu or any other city to meet regulations
that haven’t been adopted. Nevertheless, Baykeeper says
the permit hasn’t been granted, so Malibu is in
violation.
Jennings noted that is a catch-22
situation. “The city has been doing everything it
possibly can in order to comply,” Jennings said.
“And we’ve been doing it with the support and the
cooperation of the Baykeeper, it’s not like they’ve
been telling us there’s other stuff we need to
do.”
Indeed, Baykeeper and city representatives
have sat together on a task force of government and private
agencies that meets monthly to plan clean water initiatives.
Baykeeper representatives have participated in many of those
meetings attended by a reporter, and have never voiced
impatience with the city’s efforts.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County
Department of Public Works said, “Frankly, we are
disappointed the groups that have been partnering with us in
our efforts to prevent stormwater pollution all of a sudden say
they will sue us.” Gary Boze said, “We’ve
worked side-by-side with them to come up with solutions, so
this really does come to us as a surprise.”
NRDC attorney Anjali Jaiswal said part of
the problem may be a failure to communicate in the form of
mandatory reports. “It may well be that the City of
Malibu is doing all it can, but it has not submitted the annual
reports that it is required to," said Jaiswal.
“It’s the results that matter, and that’s
what this lawsuit focuses on, there is supposed to be clean
water out there, and there isn’t.”
NRDC spokesman Daniel Hinerfeld added,
“The point of this lawsuit is not to force Malibu to
spend large amounts of additional money, or to enter into new
treatment plans, but to state for the record what they have
spent and what they hope to achieve” with existing water
cleaning efforts.
“What we are hoping to do is to enter
into a discussion to negotiate to get these waters
clean.”
Baykeeper’s Egosku said
Malibu’s extensive new septic upgrade ordinances, runoff
rules and $35 million investment at Malibu Lagoon are simply
too little, too late.
“Maybe the city should be given some
credit for taking some steps,” she said. “But
that’s just taking some dead fleas off a flea-ridden dog,
and the dog is dying.”
