Boil Water Advisory Still In Effect Midday Friday, But It Could End Soon

Malibu remains under a boil water order, as of 11am Friday, but it could end soon..

The LA County health officials need two days to see if any bacteria will grow in water samples taken in western Malibu’s water pipes.

By the end of the day today … or tomorrow … Malibu residents should get some indication if the low water pressure caused by Caltrans crews on Tuesday and Wednesday caused problems.

The loss of pressure could cause water to flow backwards … downhill from residential pipes and into the water mains.

That could backlash contaminants into the pipes … although there is only a very very small chance of that.

Questions have to be asked how this happened … and how it could happen.

Waterworks District 29 is pointing the finger at Caltrans …

The old culvert was deteriorating … it blocked fish migration … and it is one of more than a dozen culverts being replaced along PCH.

Caltrans contractors turned off the county’s water pipe … serving western Malibu … so that a new section of pipe could be installed deep under PCH at the new bridge being built at Solstice Creek.

It was a complicated operation … and it took longer than engineers had thought. 

But city officials and the public were not alerted that western Malibu was running out of water … overnight.

Some of the local storage tanks in western Malibu ran out … residents found air coming out of their faucets Wednesday morning. 

These were the same water lines that supply hydrants … and it appears that Malibu’s fire hydrants had no water in the western 1/2 of Malibu for nearly a half day.  

At 8:05 am Wednesday … LA County fire command and control told KBUU that no one has notified them  … that hydrants were drying out.

More than 7,000 customers lost water service Wednesday morning, without any advance notice from Caltrans or LA County Waterworks.  

The city of Malibu was unaware that any of this was happening. 

We’ve asked Caltrans .. why was there no notice to Malibu that it had cut water to western  Tuesday night?

No answer yet.

Fire Churns North of 126 Freeway, 40 Miles North of Malibu

Fire is once again getting closer to Malibu.

The first major brushfire of this summer … is burning 40 miles north of us.

They call it the Canyon Fire … it’s burning in the mountains near Lake Piru.

As of late last night …  about 49 hundred acres had burned … 

That total doubled overnight .

That is a big fire.

About 4 thousand homes were evacuated … or warned evacuation may be necessary. 

With zero percent containment … the winds are zero … choppers will be returning this morning … west of the 5 freeway and north of Highway 126  … 

The fire is burning towards the east … towards Castaic Junction … where the 5 and 126 connect at the Magic Mountain amusement park.

Overnight … the smoke was pushed down close to the surface in Ventura County.

And that extremely heavy smoke .. very poor air quality … it’s possible that will blow into Malibu this afternoon. 

The fire comes as an area 10 miles away … at the northern tip of the San Fernando Valley … remains without water supplies.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power crews hope to get water service to the Porter ranch area restored this weekend.

That water problem is a coincidence … completely unrelated … to the water outage that hit Malibu Wednesday.

City Says: Plan Now To Evacuate This Fall

Public safety experts at Malibu city hall are ramping up their fire awareness efforts.

City fire safety specialist Gabe Echeverry urges Malibu residents to look up which evacuation zone affects which part of the city.

71469 GABE

“Evacuation readiness starts with knowing what zone you are in.

“Malibu is divided into four evacuation zones.

“Now is the time to create or update your emergency plan. 

“This includes gathering supplies like packing a go ‘bag,’ checking batteries, food, medications, including pet supplies, printing printed insurance documents, and emergency contacts.”

LA County Sends Bilingual Gibberish To Malibu And LA: EAS = Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Yesterday … as that fire north of us broke out … LA County hit the Emergency Alert System notifications.

This is a portion of what they transmitted on the EAS alert … fed out from L A County’s Office of Emergency Management and relayed by the big LA stations … and in Malibu … KBUU.

71468 COUNTY EMERGENCY

[12 seconds of bilingual gibberish] 

Two minutes of that.  

Apparently … a computer trying to speak Spanish.

Yesterday in Washington … the FCC voted to move forward with a “ground-up re-examination” of the national alert and warning systems.

The FCC yesterday said that the use of targeted alerts sent only to cellphones in danger areas may make more sense than citywide … regional EAS alerts.

But those cellphone alerts require cell towers to have power … and during power outages. … cell towers fail.

Malibu learned that during the Palisades Fire … which happened while Southern California Edison had the power turned off due to high winds. 

Local FM radio … in emergency power … was the only way many people got evacuation orders.

Yesterday … FCC chairman Brendan Carr said both broadcast EAS and narrower cellphone alerts both provide benefits, both frameworks are quite old in technological terms.

EAS technology is 31 years old.

In Malibu … management at KBUU has repeatedly asked LA County’s Office of Emergency Management to make changes in its use of EAS alerts.

The county has been unresponsive.

But this is the same county office that failed to alert residents in Altadena to evacuate.

People died from that failure.

Pepperdine Estimates That Half Of Malibu’s Jobs Are Gone After Fire, Another Small Relief Fund Announced

Pepperdine University estimates that half of the jobs in Malibu were wiped out by the Palisades Fire … and subsequent closure of Pacific Coast Highway.

And that the Palisades Fire damaged 234 businesses in and around Malibu … with 99 of them completely destroyed.

The city has set aside 300 thousand dollars in emergency grants … equal to about one months rent … for the businesses.… 

But it was deluged with 3 million dollars in requests.

A new private relief fund was announced yesterday … one million dollars … to be spread in Malibu … Pacific Palisades and Altadena. 

Steadfast LA was launched with a donation from Banc of California’s Wildfire Relief & Recovery Fund.

It will provide direct grants of up to $50,000 to retailers, restaurants and other independent businesses affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires.

The effort was announced by LA businessman Rick Caruso … who is positioning himself for a run for political office … mayor of LA or governor of California.

Judge Allows Calabasas To test Malibu’s Fire Debris Arriving At Regional Dump

97 percent of the fire debris in Malibu has been carted off.

And some of that has been buried at the Calabasas Landfill.

A few days ago … a judge in Los Angeles allowed the City of Calabasas to take soil samples at the landfill and test them for the presence of substances harmful to human health. 

And it has been accepting debris from fires … in Calabasas and elsewhere … for decades.

But after the fire in Malibu … Calabasas residents tried to block dumping fire debris at the county dump.

One Calabasas city council member says …  “What L.A. County has done to Calabasas is unacceptable. This never should have happened.”

Calabasas officials say that If hazardous waste is found, they will go back to court.

Still No Explanation Why City Council Is Agonizing Over Its City Manager Selection

Malibu’s city council met for another 3 hours yesterday … to talk about hiring its new city manage … Ronda Perez. 

Once again … no comment as to what has gone wrong. 

One week ago today … the city council emerged from weeks of closed door meetings to announce the selection of Ronda Perez to run city hall and its 130 employees.

Perez was interviewed and expressed great happiness about joining Malibu’s local team.

But something has gone wrong.

Instead of meeting next Monday night to ratify the unanimous appointment … the five city council members  have gone back into secret session … twice … to discuss it.

More than 8 hours behind closed doors.

No explanation. 

The permanent appointment remains on the agenda for the Monday city council meeting. 

Zuma Creek Underpass Will Open Soon, City Is Informed By Caltrans

It looks like the Zuma Creek underpass is about to reopen. 

Caltrans has notified there city that it plans to allow traffic to flow under PCH once again … soon.

The underpass allows traffic heading to Zuma Beach to exit PCH and pass under the road … on a concrete apron next to Zuma Creek. 

The groundwater level along the creek has been so high recently that water was coming up from under the concrete.

The underpass was also used by people trying to avoid pulling out into heavy PCH traffic on PCH from Westward Beach Road.

CPUC Ordered By State Supreme Court To Revisit Solar Panel Retreat

Three years ago … the California Public Utilities Commission crippled the rooftop solar industry … when it cut the rate that utilities pay rooftop solar homeowners for their surplus electricity … feeding back to the system.

Now … the state Supreme Court says that decision was illegal.

The new payback scheme … called NEM 3 … has not been overturned. 

But the Supreme Court told a lower court judge to look at the issue again .. and this time … do not take instructions from the CPUC. 

At issue is the rate that utilities like SCE pay for electricity from rooftop panels. 

The solar industry sold hundreds of thousands of panels to homeowners … who we’re promised to be paid the retail price of electricity for whatever they contributed to the system.

That was under a program called NEM two.

NEM Three rolled back the purchase price … and for a time … it threatened to undo the purchase promise that had been made to people who installed home solar. 

This week… The state Supreme Court ruled that a judge had improperly given discretion to how the CPUC did its reasoning. 

A new trial was ordered.

KBUU News On Partial Hiatus Next Week

Finally this morning … the KBUU News will be on a reduced schedule next week.

We have time obligations that will reduce the daily broadcasts somewhat. 

We hope to be back to regular service schedules in mid August,