LOS ANGELES COUNTY CAMPAIGNS

 Save Solstice Creek 

Solstice Creek is a year-round stream dropping 2800' in three miles to enter the Pacific at the west end of Corral Beach in the City of Malibu. It supports an unusually well-developed riparian forest of White Alder, sycamore, and Coast Live Oak. All but the lower 700' of the stream is owned by the National Park Service. That lower 700' is a five acre parcel that presently supports a large restaurant set back from the stream, which is pretty much still in a natural state on the property. 

Until Pacific Coast Highway was built in the late 1930's Solstice Creek supported a run of the now endangered Southern Steelhead. National Marine Fisheries Service has walked the stream and determined that, if a few small dams are removed and two culverts are redesigned, the lower 1.5 miles of Solstice Creek could once again support a spawning run of steelhead.

Two years ago, the National Park Service obtained $1.7 million to remove barriers to steelhead spawning on their property.  Caltrans obtained funds to modify the PCH culvert to permit passage of steelhead. The Park Service, Fish and Game, and NMFS have put in a great deal of time and effort to put together this restoration plan. 

The owner of the five acres has been trying to place additional commercial development on the property for many years. Most recently he applied for a 27-unit motel which would be built within 50' of the edge of the riparian habitat in violation of both the Malibu Local Coastal Plan and the City's own General Plan, which both require a 100' setback from the outer edge of the riparian woodland.  Furthermore, the EIR for the project did not address the potential impact of the encroachment into the riparian buffer on the viability of Solstice as a restored steelhead stream, in spite of our requests that it do so.

In addition, a local resident presented photographs showing paint allegedly dumped into a sink on the developer's property flowing out of a storm drain into Solstice Creek.  A formal complaint has been filed to investigate this. 

In the spring of 2002, the City approved the motel project with little modification. The Sierra Club is currently in challenging this decision legally.