Old Topanga Sewer Q & A: Toby Keeler

Old Topanga resident Toby Keeler does not want a new sewer line built in his neighborhood. He believes the project doesn't make financial sense and that it will hinder rather than help the area.  

In August,

City Hall's interest in an Old Topanga sewer line was sparked by a series of inspections that found a number of septic systems in the area to be failing.

Until the report is completed, Keeler and his neighbors plan on continuing to voice their opposition to such a project, which they believe will be a detriment to Old Topanga.

Keeler recently spoke with Patch about his opposition to the sewer project and the alternative he instead supports. 

Calabasas Patch: Why do you believe the sewer project is a bad idea?

Toby Keeler: The real issue here is the fact that in Old Topanga we have 38 homes. According to the city, there are about I think 20 residents that have septic problems and according to council member [Mary Sue] Maurer, asking the direct question of the city staff, all of them can be fixed. They all can be repaired. Now, if we have septic systems, 38 of them, that are all working fine and are not contaminating the stream, which we're not anyway, based on water tests we did, what is the point in spending $100,000, much less millions, to install a sewer? If the goal is clean water and you have properly maintained and operating septic systems, there's no need for a sewer. There's no need to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on a sewer, that's the long and the short of it. Especially given the fact that the city has cut school bus subsidies, they've cut Dial-a-Ride subsidies for seniors and disabled people and raised the fare. I mean, come on, let's get our priorities straight here.

Patch: So do you think it's more cost effective to repair septic systems than being required to hook up to a sewer line?

Keeler: All you have to do is ask people in the [Calabasas] Highlands that have had to hook up to sewers. We know people who live in the Highlands who already have a sewer on a street and their house is 20 feet away. They were quoted $20,000 to hook up to the sewer. Now we have residents that live on the other side of a streambed, which means you're going to have to do something called jack and bore underneath the stream . . . I know a fellow who's connecting to a sewer, and he's had to tear up his driveway and it's cost him over $15,000 so far. It doesn't make a lot of sense, not to mention the destruction of an oak covered canopy canyon road—the only one like it in the city of Calabasas. Old Topanga, south of Mulholland, up to the city line, is the only street of its kind in Calabasas and they want to come in and put in an eight-inch sewer line that's going to impact hundreds of oak trees.

Patch: You've mentioned that you had a third party conduct water tests in your neighborhood. Share the results of that test.

Keeler: We have test studies, water tests that were done by the Santa Monica Baykeeper to show that contamination in Dry Canyon Creek is 50 times higher than it is in our stream. Now admittedly, we have some problems, but they can all be fixed. They can all be fixed based on what the city staff said in response to Mary Sue Maurer's direct question.