UCLA flood raises questions about LA water infrastructure

The ruptured water main that spewed millions of gallons onto campus Tuesday was 93 years old, but in Los Angeles, hundreds of miles of century-old water pipes are tucked beneath the city’s streets.

Although Los Angeles’ aging water infrastructure is a well-known fact, last week’s pipe burst and the flood that followed have drawn attention to the impact it can have on city residents.

Though the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has still not specified the cause of Tuesday’s break, many officials and residents have called for the LADWP to disclose more information about its infrastructure and replace its pipes more often.

Currently, LADWP holds regular pressure testing on pipes throughout its system, LADWP spokeswoman Kim Hughes said. The Daily Bruin is in the process of acquiring maintenance logs for Tuesday’s ruptured pipes.

Of the 7,289 miles of water pipes in the city, about 290 miles were built before 1915, said Fred Barker, LADWP manager of water transmission operations, to L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s office in 2013. One of the ruptured water pipes Tuesday was built in 1921 and measured 30 inches in diameter, while the other was built in 1956 and measured 36 inches in diameter.

LADWP said in its 2011 report that the average lifespan of a water main is less than 100 years.

Last year, there were about 1,000 water main breaks in Los Angeles – an average of about three breaks a day. This represents a nearly 40 percent decrease in annual water main breaks from 2006, according to an LADWP report in February.

LADWP set a goal of replacing approximately 25 miles of water main lines in the city during the 2013-2014 fiscal year. Since 2006, about 150 miles of water main lines have been replaced. The work is part of a $2 billion project to improve the infrastructure over the next 10 years, according to the report.

But the construction project suffered a $380 million cut from the 2012-2013 fiscal year due to budget constraints. At the current rate, it would take more than 300 years to replace all the pipes in the city, said Jim McDaniel, LADWP senior assistant general manager, on Tuesday.

Though the exact cause of the break remains unclear, too much corrosion caused by the flow of electric currents out of the pipe over time can cause ruptures as the metal erodes, said Donald Kendall, a professor of civil engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.

As the pipe gets older, corrosion adds up, thinning the pipe’s thickness. The structures may not be able to handle the same amount of pressure they once could, Kendall said.

Still, experts and officials say that improving water infrastructure is usually not a top priority for many city residents, especially because replacing water pipes more frequently causes water bills to increase.

Replacing all the city’s water pipes in 100 years would cost $4 billion over the next decade, said Paul Koretz, Los Angeles city councilmember for the 5th District, which includes UCLA. That would lead to a 4 percent increase in water rates every year for a decade, he added.

Upgrading water pipes underneath roads could also block traffic for hours or days in a city already infamous for its congested freeways, said Henry McCann, a project manager at the Luskin Center for Innovation who specializes in water resource management and policy.

“Angelenos are very tied to the roadway,” McCann said. “There’s a delicate balance between inconveniencing Angelenos and ensuring (a stable) water supply.”

For example, LADWP officials have likened Tuesday’s main break to a similar break that occurred in a 62-inch pipe along Studio City’s Coldwater Canyon Avenue in 2009. Replacing the entire 1.3-mile portion of the pipe led to the daytime closure of the road for a month last year and frequent partial road closures. The project, started in 2011, is scheduled to finish by 2016.

McCann added he thinks city officials do not have a sense of urgency when it comes to fixing water pipe infrastructure because Los Angeles has separate systems for storm drains and sewage.

In other cities where storm drains and sewage share the same system, rupturing water mains can overload the system and cause the mixture of runoff and sewage to flow into rivers or the ocean, McCann said. Having sewage discharged into rivers or the ocean is illegal, and McCann said city governments at other cities with combined storm drain and sewage systems care more about replacing water mains to prevent such a disaster.

In a motion filed last Wednesday evening, city councilmembers Koretz and Herb J. Wesson demanded that LADWP report the cause of the water main break and possible infrastructure problems that led to it.

The L.A. City Council is scheduled to discuss the matter in its Energy and Environment Committee meeting on Wednesday at 2 p.m. in City Hall.