City of Malibu Makes Formal Request to RWQCB to Reconsider Septic Ban

• Board Is Being Asked to Take Look at New Research

BY BILL KOENEKER

Malibu city officials announced this week that they have filed a formal request asking the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board to reconsider and amend its Nov. 5 decision prohibiting septic systems in the Civic Center over the next five to nine years.
Since that decision, municipal officials say that they have evaluated the proposed ban and determined that its scope makes it technically infeasible.
“The infiltration area is not available for dispensing large quantities of treated wastewater into a small aquifer,” said City Manager Jim Thorsen in a municipal press release dated April 6.
“In other words, the current [RWQCB] plan leaves the city with a whole lot of treated water and nowhere to put it,” his statement added.
Thorsen contends that even after maximizing recycling opportunities, complying with the Regional Board’s resolution would require the city to install an ocean outfall or discharge into the Malibu Creek aquifer to disperse the treated wastewater.
Malibu municipal officials say they are certain that either approach could face strong opposition from environmental groups and others, who would delay or block such a plan.
The city’s latest conclusions are based on the RWQCB tentative septic prohibition order that includes nearly 550 homes and businesses in and around the Civic Center area.
The order is still pending before the State Water Resources Control Board, which must approve the Regional Board’s action.
Malibu’s latest request was accompanied by what city officials say are several “significant, recent scientific studies, some of which have been published” since the RWQCB’s order.
The latest research, according to the city, suggests storm water management is the most effective measure that can be taken to improve water quality in the area and that to the extent wastewater treatment measures may improve water quality, centralized treatment of a smaller area than currently proposed would produce greater results.
City officials say the underlying purpose in making the request “is to have science lead the solution to improved water quality.”
The city submitted three recent studies that they maintain support the conclusion that “Civic Center septic systems are not a significant source of groundwater contamination or degradation of water quality in the ocean or Malibu Creek.”
Municipal officials attribute improved water quality to Malibu’s “strict rules regulating new septic systems,” and, according to other studies, “proves that disinfection works and should be considered as a realistic option for protecting water quality.”
The studies include an independent University of California at Los Angeles study conducted in 2009, a United States Geological Survey study conducted in July 2009 and a study of groundwater impacts in the Malibu Civic Center that was commissioned by the RWQCB and conducted in 2009 by Stone Environmental. Malibu’s plan calls for a smaller system in a smaller area focusing on businesses and homes located close to Malibu Creek.
The city’s plan comprises three phases. Phase 1 is a centralized wastewater treatment plant completed by 2015 to treat up to 190,000 gallons per day. Phase 2 is a centralized treatment plant expansion for Serra Retreat completed by 2019. Phase 3 is a request for Malibu Colony homes and beachfront restaurants to upgrade each individual system to include the disinfection process, completed by 2019.