The City of Fillmore is about to be attacked by the most outrageous "public works" scheme ever inflicted upon a California municipality in state history. The big shots in the City of Malibu, CA, are about to launch a 10-year project transporting sand from Grimes Canyon, through Fillmore, to Malibu beach in an effort to restore the shoreline.

It's hard to contemplate the extent of this uniquely devastating plan. Imagine up to 100 belly dump trucks PER DAY traveling from the mine, down Hwy 23 to Highway 126 and through to Hwy 1 and Malibu. Think of what the coast highway will be like - for the next 10 years.

Daily traffic from the mine through Fillmore is already very heavy; this plan is almost too audacious to contemplate. Think of the traffic disruption, (100 trucks per day), destruction of our highway, dust, noise, potential accidents.

The City of Moorpark sued to keep this traffic out of their town, though it is located closer to Malibu than Fillmore.

But the entire plan is audaciously impractical. Where are all those green environmental heroes when we need them? Where is the Environmental Protection Agency when we need it? Why weren't we alerted to this threat in time to take serious defensive action?

The Gazette will do its best to report on these events and determine what can be done at the state and federal level.