Before and after the Thursday Nov. 5 decision to prohibit septic systems in the central and eastern Malibu areas Pepperdine found itself in the middle of the fray.
When university officials learned the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board (LARWQCB) included Pepperdine in the prohibition that would initiate the overhaul of the waste water system as the city of Malibu knows it they didn’t get it. Pepperdine is not in the Malibu city limits and the campus does not use a septic system.
“We’ve paid millions of dollars to ensure we had waste water treatment before we moved to campus in 1972 said Rhiannon Bailard, assistant vice president of Government and Regulatory Affairs.
HRL laboratories also fall outside of Malibu’s reach, yet falls within the prohibition.
When it became clear the water issue was not just a Malibu situation, the Regional Water Quality Board drew its boundaries based on topography and hydrology.
The second question the university sought to answer was why it would be restricted or forced to do something they already do.
Instead of a septic system, the campus waste water is transported to a package treatment plant, Malibu Mesa, which is co-funded by the university. This was a joint venture with Alcoa, the developers of the adjacent Malibu Estates.
They [the university and developer] collaborated to do this waste water treatment Bailard said. There was a lot of foresight involved in that Bailard said.
The water is treated and returned to campus, held in the ponds in Alumni Park and used to irrigate the hills of the campus. Bailard said 97 percent of the campus receives irrigation by way of the recycled water.
Because of this, university officials went to the board and Pepperdine was excluded from the prohibition approved on Thursday, Nov. 5.
City Manager Jim Thorsen said the city of Malibu will carry on the fight.
We’ll take the issue to the state board and have a discussion with them he said. We believe our proposal is sound and is based on the science.”
Thorsen said before the LARWQCB imposed the possibility of the prohibition which would force a development of a center water treatment facility the city had already begun planning for one. Malibu’s version however does not meet all of the stipulations of the one proposed by the board.
Once the plans on how the facility will be built the next question is where.
Thorsen said there are two possible locations for it: the La Paz property or in the Malibu Civic Center area which according to Executive Director of Real Estate Operations Dennis Torres the university owns about 9.2 acres or two parcels of.
“It was the university’s desire to donate that parcel to the city as a public benefit provided the city could ensure that the university and its partners would not lose the right to build the same square footage on the remaining acres that they would have been entitled to build on the full parcel Torres wrote in an e-mail. Unfortunately the city could not guarantee this as it would require approval by the California Coastal Commission.”
Thorsen noted the purchase of the lands in the Civic Center area or La Paz property are both “viable options.”