High-Tech Team Seeks to Clean Up Creek

As children splash in the sun-flecked Malibu Creek, Mark Abramson trudges up to the water’s edge, wearing what looks like a large calculator draped around his neck.

He is covered with dangling wires, and something--an antenna, maybe?--is sprouting from his backpack.

Although he looks more like a treasure hunter or a UFO enthusiast, Abramson is the man behind the latest effort to clean up the Malibu Creek watershed, a 110-square-mile area that drains into Santa Monica Bay.

Most of the watershed remains an oasis of rugged hillsides in the Santa Monica Mountains and Simi Hills, fleeced with chaparral and threaded with seasonal streams. But as the metropolis closes in, damage to Malibu Creek and its tributaries has left its outlet into the sea, at Surfrider Beach in Malibu, one of the most polluted shorelines in Southern California.

Possible culprits include the Tapia sewage treatment plant, which discharges treated waste water into the creek during winter, as well as leaky septic tanks, horse manure and pesticides seeping from golf courses and lawns.

Households add their own problems, including runoff and stream bank erosion. Concrete dams block steelhead trout from migrating upstream. Invasive plants, introduced by people long ago, are crowding out native vegetation.

It is a classic battle between man and nature. As the number of people grows--local population has shot up more than 25% in the last 10 years, by one estimate--their collective impact threatens to destroy the rustic beauty that drew them here.

In an effort to map these threats, Abramson and his Stream Team, a group of volunteers recruited by the Santa Monica-based environmental group, Heal the Bay, spend weekends slogging through streams. They gather water samples and tote global positioning devices to more accurately chart their findings.

The watershed is an area where water drains into a common outlet--in this case, the Pacific Ocean at Malibu Lagoon. The lower part of Malibu Creek and the lagoon are so polluted that a three-year UCLA study released in May branded the area “a decaying and dysfunctional ecosystem.”

Malibu Lagoon is home to two federally endangered fish species--the tidewater goby and the southern steelhead trout--and it is a popular rest stop for migrating birds.

People, too, flock to the famous shoreline. Surfrider Beach, renowned among surfers worldwide for quarter-mile rides on sculptured waves, draws more than 1 million visitors each year.

But the postcard perfect beach has some of the worst water, with Surfrider ranking among the 10 filthiest beaches in Southern California. Malibu Creek, meanwhile, is considered an impaired waterway under the federal Clean Water Act.

The Tapia plant, about five miles upstream, has long been blamed. During the wet season, the facility discharges about 10 million gallons of treated effluent a day, adding nutrients to the creek. Nutrients can promote algae growth, which depletes oxygen and endangers fish. The UCLA study said Tapia is also the likely source of giardiasis and cryptosporidium, two pathogens from human or animal waste that researchers found in the creek.

Now, the Stream Team and others are looking upstream from Tapia at the growing urbanization of the upper reaches of the watershed--places like Agoura Hills and Westlake Village, which are miles away.

“The increase in urbanization has had a tremendous impact,” said Melinda Becker, chief of the standards unit at the California Regional Water Quality Control Board. “We’ve made a lot of progress, but in the meantime there’s been a lot of development--you know, bigger houses, smaller yards, more concrete. So there’s a lot more runoff and the runoff is picking up more pollution.

“Tapia is clearly the largest source of nutrient loading to the creek,” she said. “Now the question is, what are the cumulative impacts of other sources?”

One major impact is the sheer amount of water. The Malibu Creek watershed straddles Los Angeles and Ventura counties and includes Agoura Hills and Westlake Village, as well as parts of Malibu, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley. About 100,000 people live in the area, and studies have estimated that the population is growing by as much as 2% each year.

All those flushing toilets send a rising tide of dirty water to Tapia. Ten years ago, the plant treated the waste water for 80,000 people, said Randal Orton, who supervises water conservation for the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District. Now there are 103,000 customers.

Most of the water consumed in the area, moreover, does not belong there: About 6.6 billion gallons is imported from Northern California each year.

Rising Impact of Development

Meanwhile, development has increased the area of impervious surfaces--things like roads, parking lots and rooftops that do not absorb water.

When it rains, a patch of grassy soil can absorb some of these contaminants. But rain on a parking lot sends water, as well as grease, oil and other pollutants, into the storm drains. The mixture runs, unfiltered, into Malibu Creek and its seven tributaries.

The increases in imported water and impervious surfaces have boosted water volume in the creek--about 10 times what it was 60 years ago, according to a federal study. That is eroding slopes and stream banks and uprooting native plants.

Development is not the only problem. In Calabasas, cement contractors have been caught washing troughs into the drains, said Heather Lea Merenda, the city’s storm water program manager.

Horses, too, may be contaminating the water. Researchers suspect that horse waste accounts for elevated bacteria and nutrient levels at two of the Stream Team’s testing sites: Cold Creek in Monte Nido and Las Virgenes Creek in Malibu Creek State Park, Abramson said. Both areas drain into Malibu Creek.

Some damage to the watershed is decreasing. Tapia has reduced the nitrates it discharges by about 24% over the past few years. The Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains restored a 500-foot stream bank along Las Virgenes Creek.

Cities in the watershed have begun requiring anti-runoff measures from developers. In Agoura Hills, for example, new parking lots must have filters in their storm drains to catch oil and grease from cars.

Malibu is installing a $1-million, high-tech machine at the end of a storm drain to disinfect water before it hits the lagoon.

For all its problems, the Malibu Creek watershed is only about 17% developed and “absolutely savable,” Abramson said.

Tougher federal pollution rules may help. Last year the EPA agreed to set limits to clean up beaches and waterways throughout Los Angeles and Ventura counties, settling a lawsuit filed by Heal the Bay and Santa Monica BayKeeper.

By taking a broader approach to tackling pollution, especially storm water runoff from countless sources, regulators hope to finally wash Malibu Creek clean.

“It’s not somebody dumping 10 trash bags into the river,” said Calabasas’ Merenda. “It’s the accumulated impact of 60 million thoughtless acts.”