Water Officials Link Malibu Septic Tanks to Beach Pollution

The city of Malibu, home to many big-name environmentalists, has been accused of fouling its own beaches because of its fierce dedication to septic tanks.

Nine years after the city incorporated to stop construction of a sewer line, water officials say they have linked the fetid water at Malibu Lagoon and Surfrider Beach to the septic tanks of the rich and famous, among other residents and business owners.

Flush a toilet in the exclusive Malibu Colony and the sewage may eventually end up in the very waves that have made this arc of coast so renowned.

“People here don’t see how their septic systems are polluting the water,” said Madelyn Glickfield, a Point Dume resident and former coastal commissioner. “And everyone else can’t see how they don’t see it.”

The decades-old battle over sewage cuts to the very heart of Malibu, a 25-mile stretch of coast caught between its rural past and an inevitably more developed future. Residents argue that the lack of a sewer system limits development on the hillsides and prohibits construction of high-rise hotels on the beaches.

It’s the rustic nature of the area that has drawn such environmentally minded celebrities as Sting, Woody Harrelson and Barbra Streisand, and even clean water advocates such as Ted Danson and Pierce Brosnan.

But for years, the city resisted attempts to study whether the tanks were linked to fecal coliform and other bacteria in the lagoon and the nearby beaches. While environmental groups have long charged that the septic systems were causing pollution, there was little scientific evidence to prove it.

Now, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Board is placing the blame squarely on Malibu’s septic tanks, based on a study it ordered the city to conduct.

“The city has always said, ‘It’s not us. It’s the Tapia sewage treatment plant. It’s the cities upstream,’ ” said Dennis Dickerson, executive officer of the regional board. “They were always looking for an excuse. Now they don’t have one.”

Since the report was presented to the board in August, Dickerson’s staff has been meeting with the city to discuss solutions. If the pollution is not curtailed, the city could face fines or even a prohibition on septic tanks, officials say.

That has caught people like Gil Segel in the middle of a touchy debate. Segel, president of the Santa Monica BayKeeper environmental group, lives on Carbon Beach with a septic tank in his backyard that he says is environmentally sound.

“People like to take shots at Malibu because it’s seen as a rich community,” he said. “I will tell you that 90% of the people living here are environmentally conscious. But like most cities, when somebody from the outside tells them to do something, they bristle up and look resistant.”

Segel said septic systems should be licensed and inspected regularly to ensure they aren’t leaking pathogens. But the regional board’s report placed too little blame on the urban runoff coming from other communities farther up Malibu Creek, he said.

City Cites Other Sources of Pollution

Even so, it was his own environmental group that pushed the board to study the matter. In a letter dated March 1998, the executive director of BayKeeper informed the board that “the city of Malibu is violating state and federal laws and creating severe health and environmental problems by permitting septic discharges . . . and has done nothing to remedy the hazardous conditions which exist along the coastal zone.”

That letter, as well as a report by the environmental group Heal the Bay that documented the board’s lack of enforcement on such issues, prompted the study.

Malibu leaders call the allegations preposterous and are promising a fight.

“For the regional board to try to finger the city of Malibu for the problem in the Malibu lagoon is absurd,” said Mayor Tom Hasse.

Hasse said other major polluters include the Tapia treatment plant, storm runoff, and bird droppings and horse manure that get carried into Malibu Creek and the lagoon. “Malibu has as one of its top goals to clean the creek and lagoon,” he said. “But the city can’t do it alone.”

The regional board estimates that there are 10,000 people in Malibu who rely on about 6,000 septic tanks. The remaining 2,000 residents use five small treatment plants, which have their own problems. Three were supposed to be temporary and have exceeded their design life, and some were built too close to stream beds and the ocean.

But there are many problems with the septic tanks, according to the board. Many of the tanks are old, deteriorating and poorly maintained. Others, especially in the low-lying commercial district and Malibu Colony, are located too close to the water table, which flows into the lagoon. And the tanks sometimes flood out during storms, dumping their contents straight into the ocean.

While there are contamination problems on other stretches of the Malibu coast, the lagoon draws high concentrations of pollutants. And when water from the lagoon breaches its sand barrier into the ocean, surfers suffer the consequences. They have complained of everything from eye and ear infections to stomach and respiratory illness to rashes.

The beaches are routinely closed to swimmers and surfers after rains. Heal the Bay rates Surfrider as one of the worst beaches--if not the worst--in the county for bacterial pollution, despite being in a relatively undeveloped area with a backdrop of sycamores and mountains.

“When there’s a breaching, you can see the stuff swirling around right next to the surfers,” said Jeff Duclos, co-chairman of the Malibu chapter of the Surfrider Foundation.

Yet Duclos doubts that septic tanks are more of a culprit than the Tapia sewage treatment plant and other polluters in the 110-square-mile watershed that drains into Malibu Creek. “Malibu pays the dues for the sins of others,” said Duclos.

In the study, tests showed that certain pollutants in the lagoon and ground water--fecal coliform, E. coli, enterococci--were the same as those in the septic systems. High lagoon waters cause a rise in the ground water that sometimes immerses the septic systems and allows bacteria and chemicals to escape, the study shows.

In parts of Malibu, there is simply not enough space to separate the systems from the water table.

While there are ways to improve septic systems, the city thinks the regional board is angling for a sewer line. Some environmentalists believe developers are behind the issue, hoping a sewer would allow denser growth.

The debate goes back at least 35 years, when concerns about the hazards of septic tanks prompted the county to begin planning a sewer system for the area. But voters defeated two measures for sewer bonds and the plans were scuttled, according to the regional board.

In 1985, the director of county health services declared the septic tanks a health hazard after 12 miles of coast were closed for more than two months due to overflows. “We consider it a matter of extreme good fortune that no mass outbreak of illness is yet known to be attributed to the routinely malfunctioning and frequently storm-damaged Malibu disposal systems,” he wrote to the Board of Supervisors.

According to environmental groups, little has changed since then.

Mark Gold, executive director of Heal the Bay, said that he does not support a sewer line, but that the city or state must require tighter standards, operating permits and inspections for septic systems.

“These guys need to be permitted, and they’re not permitted right now,” he said. “The same septic problems they had 10 years ago, they have today.”

This year, the city opposed efforts that would have imposed statewide performance standards for septic tanks, as well as inspections and enforcement actions.

“It’s a matter of local control and the idea of federalism,” said Mayor Hasse.

Stephen Groner, an environmental consultant for the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project, said that, with such powerful players living in Malibu, he does not foresee the regional board forcing the city to build a sewer.

“Politically, it’s never going to happen,” he said. “In the real world, what we can do is regulate what’s there. We’re not going to rip up houses in Malibu.”