Calabasas joins the fight to save clean water

Calabasas Mayor Barry Groveman said he plans to tackle the city’s clean water issue and fight the trash and other toxic debris that is finding its way to the local beaches.

Groveman said he would bring the issue of clean water to the Calabasas City Council meeting Sept. 7 to gain council member support.

“(Watershed pollution) happens in every city and it’s from golf course runoff (pesticides), oil in the streets that run off into the storm drains. It’s animal waste. It’s cigarette butts and more,” Groveman said. “Different places have different problems.

Malibu’s Surfider Beach, which is downstream from Calabasas, has been particularly hard hit.

Groveman said he wants to stop complaining about pending clean water regulations from the state and start taking action.

“What I have seen in two or three years—and I understand these things because I’m a water quality lawyer on the side—I’ve seen an inertia developing, a resistance by a lot of local officials, particularly in the inland cities . . . They say it’s too expensive; let’s try to fight the regulations. I want to start moving in a different direction.”

Groveman said he wants ideas on how to obtain funding from grants and other sources to address the watershed problem.

The Calabasas City Council meeting will be 7:30 p.m., Wed., Sept. 7 at Calabasas City Hall, 26135 Mureau Road. It will also be televised live on CTV (cable access channel 3 in Calabasas) and will be on the city’s website at www.cityofcalabasas.com.

The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board will conduct a public hearing regarding the state’s new clean water mandates on Sept. 1 at Agoura Hills City Hall.

Next month, the city will begin making improvements to a large storm drain on Lost Hills Road between Malibu Hills Road and Cold Springs Street.

“Urban runoff will be diverted out of the creek and through a filtration system,” said Roxanne Hughes, the Clean Beaches Initiative water quality improvement project manager. “We’re putting a pipe into a manhole in the existing drain that will divert the low flows (urban runoff) out of the drain and into our system so that it’s not going inside the pipe. It’s a diversion off the pipe. The high flows (water from rains) will go right past the pipe,” said Hughes.

The filtration process begins with a screen-like device that filters gross solids and debris, according to Hughes. Screened water will then be pumped into a storm chamber, where the water passes through a gravel bed and percolates into the ground water table.

The entire water quality system will be under the median on Lost Hills Road, Hughes said. According to plans, the city will work into October to install the system. The city will close the inside lanes on each side of Lost Hills Road during the installation, Hughes said.

The cost of the project is $440,000, Hughes said. The city received a Proposition 13 clean beach initiative grant of $385,000 for the project. The remaining

funds will come from the city’s general fund, Hughes said. Draining the pollution