Old Topanga Sewer Line Q & A: Councilman Jonathan Wolfson

In about 10 months, the Calabasas City Council will have all of its questions answered about the effects of having a sewer line through Old Topanga.

That's when the proposed project's environmental impact report, commissioned by the council Aug. 11, will be completed.

Some council members were motivated to request a report after an inspection of citywide septic systems reported that 33 of the 70 systems in Calabasas were failing as of June.

Seven of them are in Old Topanga.

The report could could provide evidence of why a sewer is needed in Old Topanga, why it is not or what alternatives the city could pursue to resolve the issue of failing septic systems.

The council also asked city staff to look into the economic effects residents could face if asked to connect to the sewer line or repair their septic systems.

Councilman Jonathan Wolfson recently spoke with Calabasas Patch about the sewer issue.

Calabasas Patch: Why did you want to have an environmental impact report done?

Jonathon Wolfson:  I would say I definitely supported putting together the inspection ordinance because we had close to 140 septic systems in the city of Calabasas which had not been inspected and you know, a fair amount of those exist in the Topanga area. I felt it was important to inspect them so we knew what was the condition of those systems. In addition, my thought at that time was that we would do the inspections and find out what the conditions of the inspections were and based on that we would know whether it was important to move forward with something in order to deal with those issues. . . . I feel that it's important to do the EIR because that will bring out all of the information on how to deal with those problems, those problems that could be large environmental problems. . . . The EIR would allow us to look at what would happen if we put in a sewer and what other alternatives are to a sewer in dealing with those issues.

Patch: Why were you in favor of having a study that analyzed the economic impact of the project on residents?

Wolfson: I felt it was very important to look at that. We know that there's an environmental issue. We know that the EIR is going to do a good job looking at what that is and how to deal with that both in using a sewer or the alternatives. To me, the other major impact is financial. We know that there is a substantial amount of money that would need to be spent on septic systems to bring them up to current standards, assuming that they all could be brought up to current standards. . . . I think there's a lot of unique properties in [that area] and as some of the residents brought up the point that their properties whereby the laterals that connect to the sewer line are going to have to go under a creek . . . I think it's important to understand what those costs would be so we can assess that economical impact to the residents. 

Patch: Some Old Topanga residents and even a few of your fellow council members have said that having a sewer line in the neighborhood would lead to overdevelopment. Do you share that concern?

Wolfson: That has been a concern. … There is a charm to that area because there's a lot of undeveloped lots. But the city has already done a lot of mitigation with regard to that because the city has purchased a lot of lots in that area, tax-defaulted lots, which the city owns that will never be built on. I also think that there are ways to mitigate that impact and I think that's something the EIR will look at. If we're not able to mitigate it, I think that's a huge factor in making a decision on whether or not to bring a sewer to that area.

Patch: Councilwoman Mary Sue Maurer said she did not think the timing was right to spend $100,000 on an EIR for this project. How would you respond to her concern?

Wolfson: I've been very consistent. I felt from the beginning of this process that it's important to gather information and we decided to do that by first inspecting the current septic systems and then based on the results of those inspections, we decided at that point we'd discuss whether we'd move forward with an EIR. And I think the results speak for themselves. There are definitely problems that need to be dealt with, and I think we need to figure out how to deal with them. I think we would be shirking our responsibility if we didn't look at the options and look at ways to deal with environmental issues and the environmental impact of the failed septic systems.

Patch: If the only two options ended up being moving forward with the sewer line or repairing septic sytems, would you weigh input from Old Topanga residents?

Wolfson: If the EIR looks at alternatives and we end up with the two main choices of either rehabilitating the current septic systems, bringing them up to a standard that's acceptable, or putting in the sewer, I think it's important to look at a couple of things. One would be listening to the comments of the residents. The other thing should be to look at what the costs are and whether or not it is possible to bring those properties up to standards with the existing conditions. I'm not convinced if that's true, that's something the EIR should flush out. … The other thing, technology is changing all the time. There are different septic technologies now than there were even 10 years ago. That's why I don't want to prejudge anything.

Stay tuned for another Q & A on this topic with an Old Topanga resident.