This week Heal the Bay released its annual Beach Report Card, providing beach water-quality letter grades for more than 600 beaches on the Pacific Coast based on levels of bacterial pollution. Regulars from the lineup at Malibu’s Surfrider know first hand the impacts of bacteria related illnesses. Below is a first person story from surfer Ken Seino who believes an illness that almost killed him was contracted from surfing the world famous wave. This is his fight to keep other surfers from suffering the same fate at First Point.
Call me biased, but from the first time I surfed the place, I knew Surfrider Beach was special – dare I say sacred? But the continuous human pollution from Malibu Creek eventually played Russian Roulette with me and it won. I suffered a prolonged illness from a fecal virus contracted surfing here and I almost died from it. The disease damages the heart muscle and even causes your own immune system to weaken you. It is irreversible.
Two surfer friends of mine did die from the very same virus here. They asked me to help them fight for its restoration to the pure and holy place that the Chumash tribe ascribed it to be. In order to honor my friends and honor this place how could I refuse?
As a member of the Malibu Surfing Association and a Surfrider Beach regular since 1971, I was asked by MSA president Michael Blum to accompany the “A-Team” to Sacramento and speak before the State Water Board.
The State Board was weighing in on whether to support the Regional Water Board’s earlier prohibition of on-site wastewater plants in the Malibu Civic Center area. Opposition to the action was strong with Malibu’s city attorney actually threatening litigation if the State Board upheld the prohibition, which aimed to prevent seepage of harmful bacteria from outmoded septic tanks.
I had heard of last-minute strategies by the city of Malibu to have the septic ban remanded to the L.A. Board because of its contention that the prohibition was “technically unfeasible and politically unachievable.”
So I was worried as I walked into the State Water Board hearing room and sat next to my esteemed teammates. We each spoke, with Mark Gold wrapping up succinctly all of the issues at stake. We sat down, hoping and praying that our words persuaded the five-member board that would make the final decision.
The city of Malibu arrived with its own A-Team. Euphemized threats of litigation were uttered and Mark Gold was gratuitously misquoted. I hoped that the board would see through this. Other opponents spoke as well. The residents and commercial interests complained how oppressive the ban would be to them personally.
But suddenly, after the last speaker had appealed, the board called for the vote. And in a few minutes, a unanimous vote (5-0) in our favor was recorded. About 90% of the room vacated as the board moved on to other business. We sat there together silent, staring straight ahead, stunned. All these decades of activism, protest and creation of organizations to fight this breach upon the environment and public health, and now the victory had finally been achieved. Is this how it felt at Waterloo? Mark Gold got up from his chair, looked at us and said, “What, did someone die? Hey, we won!”
It didn’t hit me personally until I was on the plane staring out the window as we were coming home. I thought about my own fight for this place I love, and also about Ralph Gambina and Erik Villanueva who died from infections from surfing Malibu. They were vocal in insisting upon this ban of septic tanks in Malibu. This is what they fought for and it is finally a reality. As I stared out the window of the plane at the glistening ocean, I cried for Malibu, but this time they were tears of joy.
