Department of Water and Power representatives presented their final Landscape Master Plan for the Santa Ynez reservoir in the Palisades Highlands at last Thursday’s Community Council meeting. The reservoir, located off Palisades Drive, was built in 1970 and is the main water source for all of Pacific Palisades and parts of Brentwood. Besides the landscaping, improvements call for a floating hypalon cover to be installed over the 9.2 acre, 70-ft.-deep reservoir to meet an Environmental Protection Agency requirement that all open-air reservoirs be covered by 2007. The site plan for Santa Ynez is designed to camouflage the cover on the reservoir by integrating it into the rocky, sage-covered terrain. The plan also calls for adding native plantings and artificial rockwork, and repaving and coloring the perimeter and access roads. Work is expected to begin in June 2006 to meet the EPA deadline. Assuring that water quality standards and fire-fighting capabilities will be met, ‘the idea is to make the cover as unobtrusive as possible,’ said Glenn Singley, DWP’s director of water engineering and technical services. He and other department officials have been meeting with local residents and community leaders since June 2002 to devise an acceptable plan for the reservoir. Four color samples of the cover (ranging from grass green to black) have been laid out on the reservoir basin for several months. The preferred sample’dark green with barely noticeable black stripes which is on the far left of the display’was passed around at the meeting. ‘We have observed, after visiting other reservoir sites, that if the color of the cover is too light, it bleaches out,’ said Palisades landscape architect Pamela Burton. ‘The idea is for it to blend into the canyon, which the darker green will do.’ Council chairman Norm Kulla told the Palisadian-Post before the meeting that he had made several trips up Palisades Drive to view the samples on display from afar. ‘I observed the different covers in daylight, morning and afternoon, in fog, in rain, and with complete cloud cover, when I couldn’t see them because weather blocked them from view,’ Kulla said. ‘My eyes tell me the cover must have some color. My preference is a green found in military camouflage, to blend with the hillside. If the cover is too light or dark, it doesn’t blend into something resembling a canyon. So I guess we avoid very dark covers.’ There are two reasons for the reservoir cover, which is expected to cost $3 million: security (reducing the possibility of vandalism or terrorism) and to preserve the quality of the water when the planned chemical switch is made from chlorine to chloramine (a mixture of chlorine and ammonia), to treat the water. Studies funded by DWP show that chloramine exposed to sunlight contributes to algae growth, which can lead to health, taste and odor concerns. The proposed camouflage cover to protect the water in the reservoir, which can be seen from hundreds of homes in the Highlands, is considered an improvement over DWP’s original proposal which called for a light-weight aluminum roof. Herb Conrad, who acted as a water consultant to the planning committee, requested assurances from Singley that an adequate Operations and Maintenance Plan be put in place ‘and complied with,’ to ensure the quality of the water. Singley replied that the State Department of Health would require such a plan and agreed at the meeting to provide it to the community. When Singley was asked about how emergencies, such as brush fires, would be handled while the improvements were being done, he replied that arrangements would be made to also use the Chautauqua reservoir. That answer did not satisfy Paul Shakstad, chief pilot of L.A.Fire Department’s air operations, who pointed out that ‘grading needs to be done’ to accommodate the larger Erickson snorkel-equipped firefighting helicopters at Chautauqua (on a ridge between Temescal Canyon and Rivas Canyon). ‘And it is absolutely imperative that we have an adequate water supply. We need a hydrant and some kind of cistern,’ which would allow a helicopter to fill up in less than two minutes. When Singley offered to have a 3,000-gallon cistern placed on-site when necessary, Shakstad objected, saying ‘that would take too long.’ He suggested instead that a storage tank be permanently stored there with high-pressure pumps. Singley agreed and will meet with LAFD’s air operations unit and Bob Cavage of the Palisades community advisory committee in the next few weeks. The existing helipad and hydrant at the Santa Ynez reservoir will still be used for smaller helicopters.
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