New Wave of Anger Brews as Malibu Sewer Cost Estimate Soars

The estimated cost to residents for a sewer system in Malibu has escalated from $4,000 per home to an average of $8,200 since October, virtually assuring another heated clash between the beachfront community and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

An earlier attempt to impose a larger sewer system on Malibu led to an angry confrontation last fall by 1,000 residents packing the supervisors’ chambers. The compromise that followed called for a scaled-down system of lower cost to homeowners. But the higher assessments announced Tuesday threatened to rekindle community wrath.

“This is going to cause another huge uproar,” said John Sibert, a member of the Malibu citizens committee that endorsed the new compromise plan two months ago, partly because of its relatively low cost.

The supervisors, after little comment Tuesday, set a Jan. 12 hearing on the smaller, $39-million proposal to construct a treatment plant in Malibu’s Civic Center area and a pumping system that would carry waste water up to seven miles from septic tanks in troubled landslide areas such as Big Rock Mesa.

Notices of the proposed sewer tax will be mailed next week to about 1,700 home and apartment owners and several dozen business owners, said Harry Stone, the county’s deputy public works director.

The proposed tax on homeowners has more than doubled since October, mostly because the earlier figure underestimated hook-up costs by about $3,000 per home, county analysts said.

Charges Big and Small

The levy on nearly three-fourths of the area’s dwellings will be $9,999, with apartments and condominiums charged $4,100 on average, county officials said. Homeowners can continue to use septic tanks if they work properly and would be charged about $3,000 less than neighbors who hook up to the sewer system.

Assessments on businesses will range from $3.3 million for Pepperdine University to about $10,000 for small businesses that produce little sewage, analysts said.

The bills could be paid over a 20-year period, which at 8% interest is about $92 a month on a $10,000 assessment, they said. An additional fee of about $46 a month would be charged for service to a typical home, they said.

“I think there will probably be some homeowners who, because the average cost is higher than was quoted, probably will get upset,” said the county’s Stone. “I hope there won’t be widespread objections.”

Sibert, however, said county explanations of the higher costs “just don’t make sense. We have to have a lot more detail before the community is going to buy this.”

Another citizens committee member, Leon Cooper, vice president of the 1,000-household Malibu Township Council, said he felt the committee had been misled by the county to generate support for a sewer system that Malibu has rejected in several forms for two decades.

“We are now a party to a figure that is escalating beyond our original estimates,” he said. “I can see the community reaction now: anger.”

Even the original $4,000 average tax would have faced a stiff challenge from many homeowners, Cooper said.

The higher estimates come 14 months after outraged Malibu residents rode in a caravan of vehicles to downtown Los Angeles and packed the supervisors’ chambers to oppose an $86-million sewer system that county officials said was necessary to eliminate the health hazard posed by septic tanks.

In a rare display of unity, virtually the entire Malibu community opposed the plan, requesting a closer look at cheaper alternatives. Experts hired by the community said no health hazard existed as the result of septic tanks.

The supervisors backed off, then helped form a committee of Malibu residents, merchants and landowners, which two months ago recommended construction of the scaled-down system.

However, relations between the county and the community thereafter worsened.

First, Stone told the citizens committee that the supervisors might still go ahead with plans for the $86-million system if the vast majority of the community does not rally behind the less costly alternative.

That struck committee members as a threat.

“They’re saying, ‘If you guys protest, we’re going to give you the bigger one,’ ” Sibert said Tuesday. “That’s not a very good way to deal with people, particularly if it’s your own government doing it.”

The $86-million proposal, as well as the compromise cheaper one, will be considered by supervisors at the January hearing, Stone confirmed. The $86-million plan would cost homeowners about $13,000 each, plus hook-up fees of $2,000 to $15,000, he said.

Though they have sought a consensus, the supervisors can impose a sewer tax without the consent of property owners because the area’s septic tanks have been declared a health hazard by the county Department of Health Services.