Battle Over Lagoon Cleanup Divides Malibu 0
MALIBU, Calif. — It was a cool weekday afternoon, but dozens of surfers were bobbing in the water, waiting for a wave. This was Malibu: the national symbol of surfing, adored by California wave riders for 50 years, near the famous stretch of coast where Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon partied on the beach.
Some environmentalists say the state parks project is critical to save a lagoon that is choking on sand and silt, and threatening plants and animals.
An injunction has blocked the bulldozers until September.
These days, Malibu is renowned for something else: a court and civic battle that has pitted surfer against surfer, environmentalist against environmentalist and City Council member against City Council member. A $7 million plan to clean up the Malibu Lagoon — its brackish waters clogged with silt and mud — has stirred up a community that is more commonly identified with exclusivity and natural beauty than street protesters and smack-downs at City Council meetings.
“I don’t care if I am not recognized,” Andy Lyons, a surfer, shouted at a City Council meeting recently as officials threatened to eject him if he did not sit down. “I surf there every day, and you don’t.”
Environmentalists say the California State Parks cleanup project is critical to saving a lagoon that is choking on sand and silt, depleting oxygen levels and threatening native birds, fish and plant life.
But the project has alarmed some surfers, who assert that the dredging could affect the sand flow to the beach and destroy what many surfers celebrate as the best wave in the world (though that designation might not be as true as it was 20 years ago, before the last reclamation project, which many surfers think also damaged the wave).
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