Olivia Leads A Star Studded Battle
Olivia Newton-John has led a triumphant star studded battle in her adopted home town of Malibu to stop polluting-causing sewers from being forced on residents in one of the most fabled beach communities in the world. Malibu, of course, is home to Olivia and scores of famous faces, including Larry Hagman, Barbra Streisand, Sean Penn and Madonna, Martin Sheen and his acting family, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Johnny Carson, Steven Spielberg, Ryan O'Neal and Farrah Fawcett, and John McEnroe and wife Tatum O'Neal. Many of the stars live in multi- million-dollar beach front homes. The battle of Malibu broke out in earnest when Los Angeles County officials told residents they would have to pay more than $122 million for a new sewer system to serve the glitzy, community.
That's when Melbourne-reared Olivia, who lives on her ranch in an area known as Big Rock, above the crashing surf, decided to go to war. She was joined by many of her celebrity neighbors and hundreds of other residents, who say they are non-showbusiness, wage-earning people who can't afford the huge bill the proposed sewer system demands. At the head of more than 1000 residents fiercely opposed to the costly project are Olivia and her friends and neighbors, including super-model Christie Brinkley, who is married to singer Billy Joel, and actress-turned-interior decorator Ali MacGraw, as well as actors John and Rob Lowe. All of them either wore or waved rainbow-striped Save Our Coast
T-shirts. We have won for the time being,
says a delighted Olivia, who these days seems to expend more effort on behalf of her neighbors than on her acting and singing career.
I've been living in Malibu for nearly 15 years,
she told a Los Angeles official who decreed that the area needed modern sewers instead of septic tanks serving most of the homes. She argued: The quality of life here means a lot to me. I see this whole issue as one colossal mistake.. we must seek an alternative solution or face further ocean pollution.
Indeed, almost as Olivia spoke, beaches in the neighboring sewered towns of Santa 1fonica and Venice were closed because they were hazardous to health as a result of sewage spills into the ocean. Olivia who has just finished a massive. multi-million-dollar remodelling of her ranch house in the Malibu hills were she lives with her husband, actor Matt Lattanzi and her daughter Chloe, says she does not oppose progress. But like many of her famous and non famous neighbors, she strongly believes that local government is trying to ram the sewers down their throats.
The big developers favor the sewers because it means they can build hotel and apartments.
she says. Our major road in and out of Malibu are usually bumper to bumper with traffic during Summer, and occasionally. at other times of the year. New hotels and buildings will just make matters worse!
Olivia, like most of the other 20,000 residents of one of the most famous and expensive strips of beach in the world, is stunned by the cost of the project. The bills start at $39,000 a home, and in the case of a nearby university totalled an astronomical $3 million.
Many people here are on fixed incomes; many, who are retired, would be paying for the next 25 years,
says Olivia. Also, the county came up with inaccurate figures and claimed that the current septic tank systems are breaking down all of the time. Much of what they said was exaggerated.
The whole furore came to a head when the residents, including Olivia, in chartered buses and carrying balloons and placards, took their protest to the county officials. For nearly eight hours, the rich, the famous and the ordinary people packed the hearing chamber and angrily argued against the new sewers. They claimed the project would change Malibu from a quiet coastal community to a busy strip of hotels and condominiums.
It was democracy in action,
recalls Olivia. They had to listen to us and to what we had to say.
The outcome was a temporary victory for Olivia and her neighbors when officials ordered new studies into the sewer problems and froze the project. But, you can bet it will come up again,
says Olivia, who was then able to return to her studio to finish her new album. And we will be there to fight it again!