By LILY TINOCO | Assistant Editor
Council District 11 hosted a virtual Town Hall on Wednesday, July 2, where Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was invited to present plans for undergrounding power, upgrading water lines and provide an update on the Santa Ynez Reservoir.
Councilmember Traci Park began the town hall by sharing that she has attended regular meetings with LADWP over the past several months, and there have been “many” conversations about infrastructure upgrades and planning for the future of the Palisades.
“I look forward to having DWP here with us this evening to share some of those big ticket items that they are working on,” Park said.
Park then handed the meeting over to Senior Assistant General Manager of the Water System for LADWP Anselmo Collins to break down the agency’s efforts to “restore, recover and rebuild” in the Palisades.
Collins presented pictures of the Santa Ynez Reservoir in the Highlands, reporting that it returned to service on June 25. Collins explained that the Santa Ynez Reservoir is a drinking water reservoir, and is used to serve water to its customers for drinking purposes and to use around their homes. It can also provide water to the fire hydrants that are connected to the distribution system.
Collins spoke on short- and long-term plans.
“We have the floating cover fixed now, but our goal is to replace this cover with another floating cover as a short-term solution,” Collins said. “We recognize that this cover obviously has been patched up quite a bit. We want to make sure that we can continue to have the resiliency that we need in our system, so we’re working to expedite the replacement of this floating cover with a brand new one.”
Collins said the long-term solution involves finding a different type of replacement cover. There are four options they are currently considering—one option involves replacing the floating cover with a fixed cover, with either an aluminum roof or a concrete slab that is placed on top of the reservoir.
Lastly, Collins said they are considering a treatment plan that would allow LADWP to remove the floating cover, and as water leaves or exits the reservoir, it would be treated before entering the system.
“Now all these alternatives that I just described, we consider them long term,” Collins said. “Meaning that it would take us probably eight to 10 years to implement. That’s the reason why having a short-term solution makes sense, to ensure that we can have reliable water supply.”
Collins then presented mainline infrastructure plans for the Palisades. Collins said there are approximately 95 miles of pipe, and some of the pipe is aging. A plan has been devised to replace roughly 13 miles of pipe—some are being replaced due to age and wear, and others will be replaced with “earthquake-resilient pipe.”
“We actually … already have dedicated three mainline crews that are going to be exclusively working in the Pacific Palisades area to accomplish these projects,” Collins explained.
LADWP Senior Assistant General Manager of the Power System David Hanson then joined the meeting to discuss power distribution recovery and a rebuilding plan.
Hanson said Emergency Recovery was completed toward the end of March, with power being restored to all standing structures by March 21. Then LADWP shifted into a Temporary Rebuild, which is also complete as of July 1.
“We set the last pole and have completely rebuilt the power system back to its original design,” Hanson said. “Where it was underground, it’s still underground. Where it was overhead, it’s back overhead. Essentially we can’t come in and set temporary poles when we rebuild our system … So we refer to it as a [temporary] restoration but in actuality, it will look very similar to permanent construction because it has to be built that way.”
The next phase is a Permanent Rebuild, which is in progress and under development. This phase involves undergrounding, which Hanson said—at the time of the meeting—was being worked on along Sunset Boulevard.
“That work was already in the budget to be done in a few years,” Hanson explained. “We’re just taking advantage of the schedule now to accelerate that and start building.”
Hanson said there are plans to bring in a new distribution level voltage that was originally going to be piloted in the Valley, but LADWP has decided to roll out to the Palisades.
Hanson also said there are plans to underground all the residential circuits.
“Our goal is 100% underground, and anything that keeps us from doing that would be … terrain or some sort of complications out there,” Hanson said.
Hanson said the team will be going neighborhood by neighborhood to configure design and sequencing for the load-out of the project.
Hanson said the team will be “very transparent” with the community about where above-ground equipment will go and will actively work with the community.
In an update sent July 5, Park confirmed that a proposed distribution station near Marquez Charter Elementary School is no longer being considered by LADWP.
“After more than a decade of community advocacy, I’m pleased to share that the proposed Distribution Station 104 next to Marquez Elementary is not moving forward,” Park wrote. “We heard the update directly from LADWP during our town hall this week. Thank you to the parents, neighbors and residents—your persistence made all the difference.”
Park said CD11 plans to continue engaging with the community through ongoing meetings and discussions focused on infrastructure projects in the community.
A link to the recording of the July 2 Town Hall is available at pacpalicc.org.
