Foundation Supports California Storm Water Project

The city of Malibu, Calif., announced good news--a $2 million matching grant from the Annenberg Foundation--for its Legacy Park Project at a recent city council meeting. Less than one week after the city revealed that its plan for a storm water/wastewater treatment program is more complex than initially thought, it was awarded this largest-ever private donation.

The treatment program will essentially need to be divided into two separate projects. Pennsylvania-based Annenberg, which also operates an office in Los Angeles, approved its grant after Malibu city officials and local developer and philanthropist Richard Weintraub gave a presentation.

"When the Annenberg Foundation trustees consider a project of the scale and scope of Legacy Park, they tend to look at three things," said Mark Eiduson, senior program officer for Annenberg. "One is the merits of the project itself; second is the caliber of the project's leadership; and third is the degree to which the community supports the project as well. Clearly, with Malibu Legacy Park, you excel in all three areas."

Of Wallis Annenberg, the foundation's vice president and a part-time Malibu resident,, Weintraub said, "She's hoping that this gift that the Annenberg Foundation is giving will inspire the rest of the part-time and all the full-time residents to do something extraordinary to clean up our water and create this soul of the city and our central park.

In addition to the Annenberg grant, the city of Malibu has raised another $350,000 in private donations. Originally the city planned to raise $2.5 million through private donations, but following this grant, that goal has increased to at least $4 million. Since the storm water aspect of the plan alone will cost about $12.5 million, the city intends to collect additional funding through grants and loans.

The storm water component of the project, the part that is further developed and set to be implemented first (by the end of 2008), focuses primarily on Legacy Park. A 2-ft deep retention pond is planned for the park; it would hold excess storm water runoff when the nearby Civic Center treatment facility is filled to capacity.

The wastewater portion of the Malibu plan, which involves the construction of a treatment plant, still requires major planning.

Source: The Malibu Times