Malibu council narrows rebuild sewer study, signals preference for Hyperion tie-in and asks staff to seek engineering funding

Malibu City Council and staff spent the April 23 work session reviewing five wastewater options to serve beachfront parcels damaged in the Palisades fire and directed staff to pursue further analysis and early engineering work on a connection to Hyperion.

The city’s public works presenter, identified in the record as Rob, laid out five alternatives: (1) connect affected Pacific Coast Highway parcels to the city’s Civic Center water treatment plant via roughly 32,000 linear feet of pipeline (listed cost $188,000,000; schedule about 65 months; about 461 parcels affected); (2) a long pipeline to Las Virgenes/Tapia (about 58,000 linear feet; $261,000,000; ~69 months); (3) build a new Malibu wastewater treatment plant (listed cost shown in slides as about $232,000,000; schedule about 82 months); (4) connect to the Los Angeles Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant (about 27,500 linear feet; $124,000,000; ~65 months); and (5) replace or repair on‑site septic systems (estimated $100,000–$150,000 per septic system; new seawalls if required were estimated separately at about $500,000 in Rob’s presentation).

Why it matters: staff’s analysis showed very different capital…