Several dozens residents from Lachman Lane packed the Community Council meeting last Thursday, hoping to gain support for their opposition to a proposed remodel that they fear will ultimately lead to a loss of ocean views and a decline in their property values. Speaking on behalf of neighbors on the high side of the 600 block of Lachman Lane in Marquez Knolls, resident Janet Turner detailed four major objections to the permit that was issued by the L.A. Department of Building and Safety for a 1,986-sq. ft. addition to a home at 642 Lachman (the lower side of the hillside street). Three Building and Safety officials were among those listening to Turner’s presentation. She argued, first of all, that according to her calculations, adding a third story to the hillside property would exceed the allowable 33-ft. height limit. Second, “adding an additional story over the current home…does not meet prevailing neighborhood standards,” Turner argued. “Every home on the 600 and 700 blocks, from the time they were first constructed to now, has never built up. According to the original developers, the homes on the even side of the street were specifically designed with a second story below the first level for the purpose of keeping one level at the street as the prevailing standard [and ensuring] that that every home on Lachman would have an ocean view.” Third, said Turner, “the permit granted for the remodel and addition of a third story…has violated City of Los Angeles rules and regulations since no notice has ever been posted on the property notifying residents of the proposed change.” And fourth, “there is no code protecting us and we need a view ordinance, especially in regard to the significant victory for view protection on upper Lachman Lane just announced by the California Court of Appeal.” Turner also charged, “The addition at 642 Lachman will immediately destroy the ocean view of several homes, and the mountain view of several other homes, but more importantly, it breaks the precedent that has protected all the homeowners on the odd side of the street on the 600 & 700 blocks…In addition, several neighbors on the even side of the street have told us that they have had no intention of breaking the precedent, but the minute it is broken by someone else, they would build up.” Turner appealed to city officials “to protect us and to protect our beautiful neighborhood. Please interpret the code in favor of the neighborhood. Let the prevailing PREVAIL.” Following Turner’s presentation, Santa Monica designer Denise Zacky read a statement from the 642 Lachman Lane owner, which began by saying: “Our remodel is 100% in compliance with the law and there is no legal basis for anyone’s contention that this remodel might have a negative affect on property values.” Ifa Kashefi, office manager for L.A. Building and Safety in Van Nuys, where the 642 Lachman permit was granted, answered each of Turner’s objections. “We added two additional reviews to this project and closely examined the plans at every stage,” Kashefi said. “The proposed heights in the plans were measured by licensed surveyors for accuracy, and their figure is 32’5″‘six inches shorter than the limit. The prevailing setbacks are 15’3″ and the owner has 15 ft.” Kashefi continued, “I realize there are issues with views and character of the neighborhood, but unfortunately, zoning code regulations in your area don’t have any requirements [about these issues]. Perhaps you need a specific plan for your area, and a residential design review board.” She vowed that “we will carefully monitor the building plans during construction to be sure that the project complies with the code.” An appeal of the 642 Lachman building permit has been filed, and a public hearing will be held by the Planning Commission within about a month.

By HANS LAETZ Special to the Palisadian-Post An application by an Australian energy conglomerate to build a floating Liquefied Natural Gas terminal in the ocean some 14 miles off the Malibu coast is making waves in that city and at the State Capitol, but has hardly hit radar screens elsewhere. BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, wants to anchor its “Cabrillo Port” floating terminal an estimated 35 miles due west of the Santa Monica Pier. The company says it can provide the West Coast with vital supplies of clean-burning natural gas, which can be used to generate electricity, power buses and trucks and reduce air pollution. Opponents have zeroed in on the possibilities of terrorist attack or other failures that would cause massive fireballs and disrupt the state’s economy. In addition, federal and state agencies have raised questions about ship collisions, pipelines that cross three active earthquake faults, and tons of smog-producing chemicals that would be introduced into the air by LNG processing. The BHPB plan is part of a continent-wide race by energy companies to be the West Coast’s portal to the lucrative worldwide LNG trade. Potential profits are huge, but industry observers have said they doubt that the market will support more than 10 of the more than 40 LNG terminals proposed for North America. The BHPB project alone would cost $650 million, the company estimates. The fuel, mostly methane, is identical to what comes out of the pipe in a house. It can be put on a ship only if frozen to 260 degrees below zero, a process that shrinks its volume dramatically. BHPB has one of the world’s largest gas reserves in Australia and adjacent waters. The company wants to bring frozen fuel to a ship that would be permanently anchored in 2,300 feet of water off Malibu’s west end (and about 18-19 miles from Anacapa Island). Ships built like giant high-tech thermos bottles would tie up and offload into the depot’s giant glass-lined storage domes. Inside the floating terminal, huge boilers would “cook” the frozen material to room temperature. Although natural gas is touted as clean fuel, this “regasification” would discharge at least 260 tons of smog-causing chemicals per year (a figure provided by BHP Billiton to the Environmental Protection Agency this summer, after being asked why it had omitted that figure in the original application). Additional emissions would come from tankers as they unload at the LNG terminal, according to EPA documents. Pacific Palisades and the greater Los Angeles basin are most often directly downwind from the ship’s proposed location, regulators say. In June, the EPA cited what environmentalists call a loophole in Ventura County air regulations, and exempted BHPB’s plan from stringent onshore smog regulations that could have strangled the plan. EPA proposed that the ship be considered to be in the Channel Islands, which have clean air and lax smog rules, instead of the closer Ventura County shoreline. Ocean protection activists said the delicate process of unloading a liquid that is so cold it will snap steel has never been attempted in open water, where the ships would not be protected from movement. Another concern is BHPB’s track record on offshore petroleum ships it operates in the southern hemisphere: an Australian parliamentary inquiry in the 1990s was prompted by a whistle-blower’s report on unsafe procedures on a BHPB floating oil terminal ship. Also never before attempted is the use of multiple natural gas boilers within the tight confines of the ship that also stores tons of LNG. Critics say this process has always been done on land, where the boilers can be better isolated from storage, docking, and control facilities. But backers of the LNG importing idea point to a spotless 30-year record of safety: LNG is regularly hauled from Brunei to Japan, where it is a key energy source. LNG tankers serving Europe have had a few minor accidents, but no catastrophic failures. Planned terminals or expansions in Massachusetts and Connecticut have triggered terrorism fears, while scientists have raised the possibility that a small fire or rocket could start the insulation on one tank to melt, releasing a catastrophic chain reaction. A 1977 study for a proposed LNG terminal on the shore at Oxnard predicted 70,000 deaths from a tank failure. And LNG critics note that a gross operator error at an Algerian LNG plant caused an explosion that killed 27 workers. More-recent studies by the U.S. Department of Energy predict a much-smaller blast zone: less than two miles, making a floating LNG terminal a preferable safety concept to one in a populated area, such as Long Beach harbor, officials there say. The Malibu project was proposed in 2003, but had largely gone unnoticed until this summer, when federal officials told BHPB that the application had numerous shortcomings and that a list of 110 technical questions’some major’needed answers. BHPB called the delay routine, but the federal action prompted the Malibu Times to analyze thousands of pages of environmental analysis. The resulting series of articles examined numerous objections filed against the project by federal and state agencies, as well as environmental groups and individuals. One investigation found that apparently spurious documents were filed on behalf of persons supposedly enthusiastically supportive of the Malibu area LNG plant. Many of the names and addresses of supposedly LNG boosters cannot be located, and some Californians quoted in the official files as supporting BHPB told reporters that they had never heard of the firm or Cabrillo Port. The Ventura County Star then looked into the same issue and also found apparently fake letters. BHPB strongly denies it was behind any public comments in the federal files, and points out that they could have been filed by anyone with a computer. But the Malibu paper’s investigation found that at least one of the letters was written by a close relative of BHPB’s California spokeswoman, who gave the same Oxnard address as the BHPB official. State legislators have cited the questionable letters as they consider a bill to slow down the LNG permitting process, and to compare the three projects proposed for the state’s coast. The City of Malibu on July 27 asked the State Attorney General’s office to investigate the apparent fraudulent filings. The two agencies weighing environmental concerns, the U.S. Coast Guard and the California Lands Commission, have said the apparent phony documents are not relevant to their task of determining if the project can be safely built. But coastal advocates say that the artificial letters of support may be related to a $1-million public-relations campaign by LNG advocates administered by a close associate of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has a final say in the BHPB terminal proposal. Mike Murphy, the pollster and advertising consultant who guided Schwarzenegger’s 2003 recall victory, has been hired by the LNG industry for the PR campaign. The possibly-fake letters are designed to give the governor “ground cover” if he should decide to approve the LNG plant over local objections, said LNG foes. Offshore LNG terminals are not covered by provisions in the new energy law passed by Congress on July 28. Schwarzenegger will have an up or down decision on Cabrillo Port at some point. Major environmental problems were cited by state and federal parks agencies, noting that the BHPB proposal sits in a proposed marine sanctuary and is adjacent to two national parks, the Channel Islands and the Santa Monica Mountains. The U.S. Geologic Survey raised the 60-percent likelihood that a magnitude 6.5 earthquake will strike within 30 years on one of three active undersea faults that would be crossed by the two 24-inch undersea pipelines linking the ship to Oxnard. The USGS also warned that undersea landslides caused either by earthquakes or storm-related debris flows could disrupt the pipelines. That study was requested by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara), who said the USGS findings raise serious safety questions that must be taken more-seriously by federal regulators. The Coast Guard has asked BHPB how it will handle loaded LNG ships intersecting the busy coastal shipping lanes, which pass just to the north of the LNG site. The Coast Guard has asked BHPB if cargo-ship traffic control should be extended from the San Pedro harbor out to Anacapa Island, a 40-miles distance. The Coast Guard also asked BHPB why it had filed no information about insurance for the billions of dollars of private property in the area, or how it would work with local fire departments on disaster plans. It also asked for details on how the company would handle drifting or burning LNG tankers. ”In Oxnard, several elementary school administrators have said they’re distressed to learn that BHPB wants to place its underground natural gas pipelines next to their campuses, closer than federal safety guidelines proscribe. Pipeline accidents are a continuing problem; 12 people were killed in New Mexico in 2000 when a similar line exploded. BHPB spokeswoman Kathi Hann has issued a statement alleging that the government’s concerns are “being taken out of context and misrepresented to sensationalize the environmental review process. There is nothing unusual or proprietary about the review that BHPB is currently undergoing.” The stakes for the world’s largest minerals firm are high; there are competing proposals in California and northern Baja California. Mitsubishi is negotiating with the Port of Long Beach to place an LNG terminal there, but strong local opposition has dogged that project, and the Long Beach City Council nearly terminated talks this year. The third California proposal would convert an out-of-service offshore oil rig west of Oxnard into an LNG terminal. That plan has languished and its major Australian sponsor, Woodside, has withdrawn active participation. Plans to resume offshore oil drilling at that site, Platform Grace, may also prevent LNG operations there. At least two LNG projects in northern Mexico may beat BHPB to construction, casting the $650-million Malibu project in a tight race. Sempra Energy, the parent company of Southern California Gas, may have the inside track, industry analysts say, as it has actually begun moving dirt at its proposed LNG terminal near Ensenada. Despite the fact that it does not have final regulatory approval from Mexico City, Sempra has already announced plans to increase its Ensenada capacity to 2.5 times that of the BHPB proposal. “One thing we really need to determine is, ‘Do we really need a facility here [off Malibu] if there are two of them operating in Baja?'” asks Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills). ”Some environmentalists favor LNG imports as a clean energy alternate, but question whether the floating terminal near Malibu is the best site for importing LNG. BHPB had hoped to win regulatory approval this summer, but the environmental shortcomings in its application have delayed the timeline indefinitely. Opponents say there is a chance that it never can surmount smog regulations and other issues. But the company continues to invest in, and campaign for, its Cabrillo Port project. If Governor Schwarzenegger and federal officials approve it, and if it passes environmental and court challenges, the largest floating industrial project ever built adjacent to the California coast could be operating off Leo Carrillo Beach in Malibu in about five years. (Hans Laetz is an investigative reporter with a 20-year career as a television news editor at KABC, KTLA and CBS News, and has also been a radio, wire service and newspaper reporter and editor. The Malibu resident is entering law school with plans to enter the field of environmental law.)

Last Saturday night, the Movies in the Park crowd cuddled for warmth during the showing of the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night.” Chamber president Sandy Eddy joked that they could have been watching “March of the Penguins” because “it was that cold.” Eddy warns those who come out for this weekend’s feature, “October Sky,” to dress warmly. The film, based on the biography of a man who became a NASA engineer, stars Jake Gyllenhaal and co-stars Oscar winner Chris Cooper and Laura Dern; it will begin at 8 p.m. on Saturday. Friends of Film founder Bob Sharka said, “The only time that I disagreed with the Palisadian-Post movie reviewer was when, in 1999, he gave ‘October Sky’ only 4-1/2 palm trees. I gave it the ultimate 5 palms.”