Malibu Park boil water order lifted after weekend confusion

The weekend boil water order for about 300 households in Malibu Park is over.

There never was any contamination — just a worry that there could have been a security problem that could have led to contamination.

But many residents were left confused by a lack of information from the city, which does not run the water system and was not alerted by the county of the problem.

The whole kerfuffle started Friday when county staff found some sort of security issue at the Busch Drive water tank, with lots of water flowing down the street and into an arroyo. County workers said they had to drain as much as 300,000 gallons of water to reach a stuck drain valve at the bottom of the tank.

For some reason, the city of Malibu did not get an alert from the county that the largest neighborhood in town was under a boil water order.

KBUU started getting phone calls and emails about the big water spill down Busch Drive on Friday afternoon. When the boil water order was emailed to residents Saturday morning, KBUU began alerting via news updates on the radio and on social media.

The county started passing out free bottled water at its office at the Civic Center. The city apparently did not get word until long after KBUU asked them what they knew about it, late Saturday.

No alerts went out from the city — only from the county — and many people are not on the right email list for that.

The county said everything checked out, no contamination was detected, the water tank was refilled Sunday afternoon, and the water is perfectly safe.