Supervisors take aim at sand-hauling project to replenish Broad Beach

Ventura County Star

By Michele Willer-Allred
Posted: Dec. 09, 2015
The Board of Supervisors plans to fight a project that
involves having a few hundred trucks a day hauling sand
through various cities in the county to replenish Broad
Beach in Malibu.
Supervisor John Zaragoza raised the issue during board
comments at Tuesday’s meeting.
Each supervisor commented on each of the areas they
represent in Ventura County, pointing fingers directly at
Moorpark for creating a bad situation for other cities.
The Moorpark City Council was accused of approving an
agreement that would send truck traffic north on Highway
23 to Fillmore, instead of going through Moorpark, without
notifying Fillmore city officials.
That route would create truck problems for other cities as
well, supervisors said. “It’s unconscionable that we have
not had good neighbors who have felt it was acceptable to
take an action that pushed this out to other parts of the
county without discussion and any dialogue whatsoever,”
Supervisor Kathy Long said of Moorpark.
In response on Wednesday, Moorpark City Councilman
Keith Millhouse said he had issues with the supervisors’
criticism of Moorpark.
He said city officials, including himself, were told by the
Broad Beach Geologic Hazard Abatement District that
Fillmore was notified and had no opposition to the truck
traffic.
“To us, that was consistent with prior actions by the city of
Fillmore, that they were OK with the truck traffic,” said
Millhouse.
“This wasn’t done quietly or in secret,” Millhouse said of
the council’s decision.
Officials in Ventura County have expressed concern about
the environmental impacts of the project. The first phase
involves an estimated 43,000 one-way truck trips hauling
up to 300,000 cubic yards of sand over three or four
months to eroded Broad Beach. The project has been
permitted for 10 years with the option of possible
extensions.
“I know they need the sand, but not at our expense,” said
Zaragoza.
He added that he has concerns about trucks going
through areas of Oxnard, especially those where many
children are present.
“I really want to put a stop to this. I think it’s not fair to our
community,” Zaragoza said.
Long said she is in discussions with Fillmore city officials,
looking at strategies to deal with the situation.
“Fillmore is very concerned about this as they should be. I
said to them that I will be standing with them working on
these issues, figuring out what’s the best leverage we can
get to stop this from occurring,” said Long, adding that her
office was never contacted by Moorpark or any other
agencies for discussions on the issue.
“Disappointment is not a strong enough word for me to
express my feelings about Moorpark City Council’s action
regarding this trucking thing,” said Supervisor Steve
Bennett, contending that Moorpark made decisions “off the
radar screen.”
“You can’t have good local government with what just
happened here with the city of Moorpark,” he said.
“I am 100 percent committed to demand that we get a full
accounting of exactly what happened, how it happened.”
Millhouse said being a “good neighbor” should work both
ways with the county and the city.
Millhouse said that when Moorpark city officials fought a
proposal to expand the Grimes Rock mine north of
Moorpark in 2013, Fillmore was on board with similar
opposition.
But on the day of a county hearing on the proposal,
Fillmore reversed its position without notifying Moorpark.
Then-Fillmore Mayor Greg Neil sent a letter to the county
in support of the expansion.
The Grimes Rock expansion that was approved by the
supervisors called for much of the company’s 220 daily
one-way truck trips to pass through Moorpark.
Millhouse added that the county several years ago had
meetings on the expansion of the Simi Valley Landfill
without inviting Moorpark officials, even though the city
would be greatly affected by landfill truck traffic.
Wealthy Broad Beach landowners are fully funding the
$31 million sand-hauling project through their property
taxes.
“There are powerful people that have pushed this project
through at the expense of residents in all our districts,”
said Bennett.
Long said the county should focus their energies on the
State Lands Commission and Army Corp. of Engineers,
since they will deal with additional permitting for the
project.
The California Coastal Commission, on a 7-5 vote,
approved the project in October. The project will create a
new 1.1-mile public beach, including a restored dune
system.
Before construction can get underway, projected in late
2016, the project must be approved by other agencies,
including the Army Corps of Engineers, the State Lands
Commission and the Regional Water Quality Control
Board.
Bennett said he doesn’t believe the California Coastal
Commission even had a conversation about alternatives.
“It is because this was done through administrators, who
pushed this to be done quietly behind the scenes,” he
said. “They denied the public and even the Coastal
Commission the opportunity to even have that
conversation.”