Sampling Conducted to Trace Source of
PCH Shoulder Water
• RWQCB Testing Will Tell If Permanent
Flows Beneath Zuma Bluffs Pose Health Hazards
Two ponds full of cattails, reeds and other
marshy plants that flourish along the land side of Pacific
Coast Highway at Zuma Beach have caught the eye of the
water police. Now, homeowners on the bluffs may find themselves
with a festering wastewater problem.
Staffers from the Los Angeles Regional
Water Quality Control Board took samples at two permanent
swales of murky, algae-sprouting runoff along PCH east and west
of Guernsey Avenue three weeks ago. The two workers also
photographed water seeping out of the bluffs beneath houses on
Guernsey and Surfside Way.
Test results are due in late July, and
depending on the results, homeowners living on the bluffs above
PCH may face mandatory landscaping water cutbacks or be
required to replace septic tanks, officials said.
“Here’s a nice wild
watercress,” said field tech Toni Callaway, poking
at one plant during the early-June sampling session. “I
don’t think I would want to eat it, though,” she
said, pointing at the murky water oozing from beneath a nearby
blufftop house.
“The presence of those seepages
during this time of drought indicates that either there is
over-irrigation, or effluent from septic tanks gathering on the
roadside, said water board chairperson Francine Diamond.
It is also possible that someone has bypassed their septic tank
with household runoff, which flows through the soil to the
roadside swamps, she said.
A third possibility. according to
scientists, is that the water is from natural springs. The fact
that the water may originate as septic seepage does not means
the water is necessarily contaminated as it surfaces. But such
a flow could be illegal and harms the environment as it
gives bacteria and viruses a place to breed.
Scientists are currently analyzing the
samples for nitrites, nitrates, ammonia, nitrogen,
bacteria and soap ingredients, said Steven Cain, the
board’s executive director. Chemical analysis might
detect pesticide or fertilizer residues, which would indicate
runoff from landscaping.
E. coli and other bacteria can be traced
back to septic tanks, and Los Angeles County is currently
conducting a separate study in which human DNA is being sought
in polluted creeks to determine if the pollution is of human
origin.
The regional water board expects
results in four weeks. “The results will go to the City
of Malibu, and they are required to order corrective
steps,” said Diamond.
“We’re throwing a wide net
looking for the typical pollutants that would give us an idea
for a source for some of these ponds,” said Cain.
Detailed rainfall and water table levels
are kept by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works
at a nearby sewage treatment plant, and an engineer there says
years of drought have left groundwater levels in the Trancas
Canyon area very low.
Nevertheless, arroyos along the urbanized
coast have begun flowing year-round in the last decade,
longtime residents say. Overwatering of plush landscaping and a
water table saturated with septic tank water being cleansed
through the soil may be to blame, scientists said.
In recent weeks, state Department of
Transportation workers have bulldozed muck off the road
shoulder to allow the stagnant water to better drain into
culverts. While that may reduce the ponding at the
pavement’s edge, the dirty water is piped under PCH into
the sand of Zuma Beach.
Ocean water at Zuma Beach near Trancas has
generally tested clean, according to the regularly scheduled
testing by the group Heal The Bay.
