La Paz Attorneys Seek Appeal Hearing Before State Board

• Accuses LARWQCB Staff of Playing Politics Over Delay

BY BILL KOENEKER

The state Water Resources Control Board has been asked to hear an appeal of the Malibu La Paz Ranch for its final approval for its wastewater treatment plant.
La Paz’s attorneys have accused the local Los Angeles board of dragging its feet on the La Paz application and cite the Permit Streamlining Act, which applies to time limits for processing permits, for why the state agency needs to act hastily
A spokesperson for the WRCB said there has been no date set yet for a state board hearing, but it would take at least nine months to process the petition.
During the past year, letters, faxes and emails have been flying back and forth between the La Paz attorneys and the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board staff about the matter, with the RWQCB executive director insisting La Paz’s application is incomplete and what is needed is a final Title 22 Engineering Report.
The City of Malibu had approved the office and retail center and its Environmental Impact Report, although those approvals are currently being challenged in court by the Santa Monica Baykeeper.
However, La Paz needs a separate permit for its wastewater discharge. La Paz’s wastewater treatment plant is described by its proponents as the “very first in the state to use this state-of-the art green and decentralized system to treat and beneficially reuse all of its wastewater on site.”
In its petition to the state board “to review the failure of the Regional Water Quality Control Board to act on La Paz’s application for water reclamation requirements and waste discharger requirements,” lawyers have made several charges, contending the RWQCB and its staff is playing politics with the application. “La Paz has come to believe that the LARWQCB’s delay is calculated to force La Paz into the teeth of a prohibition that the LARWQCB is currently processing,” the petition asserts.
The petition seeks for the state board to confirm that La Paz’s application “has been deemed approved as a matter of law because of the LARWQCB’s refusal to consider the application within the time required by the permit streamlining act or in the alternative that the state board now schedule a hearing so the La Paz’s application can be promptly heard on its merits by the state board.”
Last month, La Paz attorneys took matters into their own hands and gave public notice that the application would be deemed approved if the board did not act within 60 days. The executive officer of the board Tracy Egoscue immediately sent another letter to La Paz that it was “proceeding illegally” and that no action would be taken until February 2010.
“It is clear no matter what La Paz does, LARWQCB has no intention of complying with its legal obligation to hear the application by Aug. 31, 2009,” the petition goes on to state.
A spokesperson for the state agency said that given the nine months to process the La Paz petition it would be sometime in 2010 before the board could hear the matter if it is deemed a valid petition by the staff.