LOS ANGELES — A water main break that resulted in the release of an estimated 20 million gallons of water, flooding Westside Los Angeles neighborhoods and the University of California-Los Angeles campus, is reflective of problems cities across the country face as they grapple with aging infrastructures.
Los Angeles Councilman Paul Koretz and Council President Herb Wesson introduced a motion July 31 as Los Angeles Department of Water & Power crews struggled to shut-down water flow in order to repair the 30-inch pipe. The motion asks that LADWP report to the council on the cause of the pipe failure and recommend steps for reducing the current pipe replacement schedule of every 300 years.
The UCLA campus suffered extensive water damage as a result of the ruptured water main. The newly-renovated Pauley pavilion contained up to eight inches of water on its floor during the height of the flow. Campus parking structures also faced rushing water that trapped victims in their cars. Crews were working to fix a car-sized sinkhole on Sunset Boulevard this week so they could open the road, a main thoroughfare on the city's Westside to traffic.
The American Society of Civil Engineers estimated in its 2013 report card that the country needs to invest $3.6 trillion in its infrastructure. ASCE gave the United Stated a D-Plus grade point average in the report card that depicts the condition of the nation's infrastructure.
The Los Angeles water main break last week came just days after the governor asked cities to enforce a $500 fine on homeowners and businesses who continue to water decorative landscaping, including lawns, while the state grapples with the impact of a three-year drought.
"I didn't realize the replacement cycle (for LADWP's water pipes) was as slow as a 300-year cycle," Koretz said. "There has to be a way to speed that up."
Estimates indicate that to speed up the cycle to 100 years in 10 years would cost $400 billion and result in rate increases of 4% a year in each of those years, Koretz said.
Koretz conceded rate increases that massive would be too much of a burden to put on ratepayers. He said he would like to see a plan that would result in more gradual rate increases, but "show some progress" toward reaching the goal of replacing the pipes on a 100-year cycle. He doesn't consider a 100-year cycle great either, but it would lessen the odds of flooding events like the one that occurred last week on the city's westside.
Koretz' district has been particularly hard hit by flooding from aging water pipes. Burst pipes that resulted in severe flooding in Cold Water Canyon and near Laurel Canyon Boulevard in separate instances over the past five years were in his San Fernando Valley council district. The flooding in the Laurel Canyon Boulevard area of the San Fernando Valley resulted in a sinkhole that swallowed a fire truck in 2010.
"I am starting to think this is not a once a century problem," Koretz said. "There are so many things the city is behind on because of decades, and likely a century, of deferred maintenance."
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who asked all of the city's general managers to re-interview for their jobs when he took office in July 2013, has placed particular scrutiny on LADWP.
Jeff Millman, a spokesman for the mayor's office, said Garcetti negotiated "a new LADWP workers contract with no salary increases for three years that will save billions and provide additional resources in future years for infrastructure improvements and operations.
"We are analyzing rate proposals for the next few years," Millman said. "A water base rate increase proposed this year would not have affected the Sunset Boulevard water main."
The City Council must approve any rate increase, and the process takes over a year as it involves reviews by neighborhood councils, the ratepayer advocate, and the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, Millman said. In fiscal year 2013-14, LADWP has spent spent $341 million on water capital projects, including those to improve water quality, and repair or replace water pipe trunks and mains, he said.
Koretz doesn't think the answer will lie in savings from employee salary reductions, however.
While the salaries LADWP workers were commanding through the recession looked excessive, Koretz said that since the economy has recovered competing private utilities are paying even more.
"We are now struggling to compete with private utilities who are paying higher salaries," he said.
The department has an aging workforce and will need to hire replacement workers, which Koretz said could be a struggle if the city doesn't pay salaries that are competitive to those offered by private utilities.
"We have to find a way to ratchet up the replacement cycle, but in a way that will not create too much of a burden for ratepayers and taxpayers."
