Surfers Rise in Malibu Politics

The dredging plan calls for the lagoon's water to be drained, treated and dumped in the Pacific. But the presence of MRSA in the sand raised a question: Would dumping the lagoon's water, even if treated, shift this hard-to-kill superbug to the ocean?

"The discharge pipe for the [proposed] construction project is sitting on the beach sand," Warner says.

ILLUSTRATION BY PATRICK MCQUADE

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More About

• Malibu
• Andy Lyon
• Suzanne Goode
• Contagious and Infectious Diseases
• Staph Infections

Malibu Mayor Pro Tem Lou La Monte had already thought some parts of the restoration plan were weird, and the MRSA issue got his attention. In addition to restoring the lagoon's water flow, the project aims for a more curated, landscaped experience. Today visitors stroll on simple boardwalks through wetlands. The new plan would funnel visitors onto limited observation decks. The landscape, now mostly wild, would be somewhat tamed to include bird blinds, picnic areas and more educational signs.

La Monte calls it "a theme-park version of the lagoon." But when he saw the NOAA findings on MRSA, he was aghast. "I didn't think we should give our support to this project if we couldn't guarantee that the water wasn't gonna make anybody sick."

The City Council had been sending letters to Suzanne Goode, demanding that various tests be done after the restoration was finished. The city also wanted the state to indemnify it from lawsuits.

On March 30, Goode agreed to some tests, but she ignored the requests based on NOAA's findings about the superbug.

"None of us were happy with the response we got back from State Parks," says Malibu Mayor Laura Rosenthal.

Goode argues that the lagoon naturally pours into the ocean each winter. "I fail to see the difference" between the state purposely putting lagoon water in the ocean and "what is normally occurring," she says.

Councilman John Sibert, a former chemistry professor at Yale University, feels that activists like Hanscom and Lyon used scare tactics and ignored solid science. But he voted against the project on April 9. "The lagoon's sick," he says. "We need to do something about it." But "I don't think [the state] took us seriously."

At this point, Rosenthal says, the feeling is that "the proponents have not done a good job of communicating ... their science."

Reach the writer at hillelaron@mac.com.