Purification standards set too high for reclaimed water discharge

The Regional Water Quality Control Board is about to set some incredibly high standards for water and sewer agencies upstream from the Pacific Ocean.

As now proposed, the board’s expectations are excessive.

While nobody wants public beaches to be closed because of pollution, the new standards must be realistic and allow reasonable time for compliance.

In this area, unless practical alternatives can be found for cheap disposal of recycled water, residents could soon face major increases in sewer rates.

Shockingly, the board’s new standards don’t even rely on proven scientific data. It’s like they were created with voodoo or "perfect world" scenarios.

There’s no proof that the unrealistic standards being proposed by the Regional Water Quality Control Board will even fix the problem. The expectations might sound good, but they miss the mark because nobody in Malibu (with the exception of Pepperdine University) is even on a sewer system.

Defective or leaking septic tanks that are much closer to shorelines than this area are being overlooked while the water board focuses attention on recycled water upstream.

To work effectively, public agencies must cooperate. In this case, it’s like a bunch of bureaucrats or fat-cat appointees are sitting in an ivory tower, rubberstamping the demands of fanatic environmental groups.

If that’s true, the state and nation are in trouble.

Cleaner water is, of course, the goal of any reasonable person.

But it’s grossly unfair to arbitrarily set unrealistic purity standards for reclaimed water and not allow adequate time to solve the problem.