Legacy Park Plans Are Ready for Their
Municipal Close-Up
• Lack of Wastewater Plant Criticized
It will be the big moment for Malibu
municipal officials when plans and permits sought for its
Legacy Park are aired before the city’s planning
commission at a special meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 21, at
4 p.m.
At that time, the planning panel will
consider an application for the construction of a public park
and various other improvements, such as components for a
stormwater treatment system, including a holding pond.
The commission is being asked to certify
the Final Environmental Impact Report and grant a
coastal permit, conditional use permit and variance for
the 15-acre site within the Civic Center area.
The plans for the park, including a bridge,
trails, accessory structures and habitat restoration, have
generated little controversy within the Malibu community, but
have been met with fierce resistance from outside
environmental groups and some government agencies.
One of the most vociferous critics is Mark
Gold, the head of Heal the Bay, who was on the
city’s Legacy Park Technical Advisory
Committee. Gold only recently publicly parted ways with
the city on the park when it became clear that municipal
officials were moving forward with utilizing the park for
stormwater treatment and wastewater disposal for its lumberyard
shopping center, but was putting Civic Center wastewater
treatment on the back burner.
“I sit on the city’s committee
and we had numerous meetings over the last two years that
focused on a new sewage treatment/water recycling plant
for the city. Unfortunately, despite opposition from
the environmental community, the final EIR for Legacy Park did
not include an analysis for the proposed central water
recycling plant. I’ve been at half a dozen meetings where
City Manager Jim Thorsen made it clear that the city was
planning to build the Civic Center water recycling plant by
2011. But Malibu’s omission of that facility in the
Legacy Park EIR and subsequent failure to release any sort of
action plan to build the facility does not bode well for a
comprehensive solution to Malibu’s many water quality
problems,” Gold wrote in a blog he calls Spouting Off.
The plans for the Legacy Park were
originally conceived as an integrated wastewater and stormwater
management system, until the city moved in another direction.
The plan today is still called the Malibu Civic Center
Integrated Water Quality Management Plan.
Municipal officials have argued they
have the means and the money to proceed with the stormwater
portion of the plans, but would have to wait for years to
complete and construct an integrated plan, including a
wastewater treatment plant. The city council is expected next
week to allocate over $2.5 million for design plans for a
treatment plant.
It wasn’t until the final EIR for
Legacy Park was released that Gold and others went public with
their complaints. “At this point, the environmental and
surfing communities have lost all patience on the issue. The
Surfrider Foundation, Malibu Surfing Association, Santa Monica
Baykeeper and Heal the Bay have met numerous times in the last
few months to initiate a ‘Save the Bu’
campaign. We all agree that there should be a wastewater system
moratorium in the Civic Center area until Malibu comes up with
a legally binding plan for the centralized water recycling
facility,” Gold added. He later addressed those same
comments to the planning commission, the city council and later
to the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
While Gold and Heal the Bay have tried
persuasion, their colleagues at the Baykeeper have been
somewhat more forceful and initiated legal action against the
city on several fronts—litigation alleging the city has
violated the Clean Water Act and a lawsuit asking a judge to
set aside the city’s approvals of the La Paz shopping
center because of concerns for the potential pollution of
groundwater in the Civic Center.
Gold has written that he thinks the
city’s priorities may have taken a turn after the plans
for the city-owned lumberyard shopping center required a
certain-sized wastewater treatment plant.
“What was Malibu’s big
motivation to approve the permit for the lumberyard’s
on-site sewage treatment system? Malibu is the landlord for the
property and the city gets revenue from the businesses at the
lumberyard, which helps pay for the Legacy Park project. In
other words, without completion of the development, Malibu
can’t pay for plans to build and operate Legacy
Park,” he noted.
Some observers have commented that it is
ironic that a city that incorporated to rein in development is
now dependent on it.
