After nearly a week without running water in their homes, residents in Porter Ranch and Granada Hills were finally able to start feeling some normalcy after service was restored on Monday morning. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) lifted the Boil Water Notice, telling its customers that the tap water is now safe to drink in the affected areas.
However, not all residents are ready to trust the water over potential health risks, and are frustrated with the handling of the situation by both LADWP and LA officials.
The water outage began on Aug. 5, when crews were making repairs at a pump station that connects to a 10-million-gallon tank serving the area, and a valve that controlled the flow of water failed to reopen, cutting off water that flowed from the tank into the pipes for more than 9,000 customers. Repair efforts continued through to the weekend until Aug. 11, when the service was restored.
Matt Pakucko, a member of the group Save Porter Ranch, believes that a problem like this was going to happen eventually due to the increasing number of housing developments in the area that use more water and strain the system.
He expressed frustration with LADWP and their initial attempts to repair the valve. On Aug. 6, the department sent out an update in the morning that crews would have to dig 20 feet underground to access and repair the valve, estimating that repairs would be done by Aug. 8. However, later that same day, LADWP sent another update explaining that the valve was underneath two oil pipelines, a fiber optic line, gas line and large boulders, which would delay repair efforts.
For Pakucko, he questioned why LADWP didn’t already know or have access to blueprints for the area to assess what was underground before they started excavating.
“They don’t know what’s in their own trenches that they have to dig [into],” Pakucko said. “So that’s a fail from day one, and then they keep pushing the timeline back because as they dig, they find more stuff. Really, does anyone keep track of what goes in the ground over here or what?”
Following the initial repair efforts, LADWP urged its customers not to use tap water so crews could refill the tank and repressurize the water system. However, Pakucko explained that when LA Mayor Karen Bass instead told customers to conserve water, it created two different messages that only caused confusion.
Furthermore, he said it was “victim blaming” to tell LADWP customers that they can’t turn on the system if they don’t refrain from using water.
“They’re going to stand up there and tell us that we need to do something so they can turn on their freaking system? Are they that useless?” Pakucko said. “Are they that ill-prepared? … What happens when there’s a [major] earthquake in LA and every city is looking for water?”
Additionally, he added that when the water situation first began, he heard once that there was no water in the fire hydrants, but it was never mentioned again. This was not only during a heat wave, but in an area that’s at high risk of a wildfire.
During the repair efforts, the LA Fire Department (LAFD) had deployed water tenders – also known as a water tanker – engine task forces and other resources to Porter Ranch and Granada Hills with a focus on high fire-risk areas.
On Aug. 11, Cpt. Erik Scott, LAFD public information officer, wrote on social media that the “flow and pressure to fire hydrants in Porter Ranch and Granada Hills has been fully restored following the recent valve failure. All hydrants are now operational and ready for firefighting needs.”
Although the Boil Water Notice has been lifted, Pakucko doesn’t trust the water to be safe to use. He explained that there’s more than just bacteria inside the pipes, but different kinds of sediments and metals that have been building up for decades.
“All that stuff is going into people’s homes, and the LADWP says boil your water and then drink it. Are you (expletive) kidding me?” Pakucko said. “Are you seriously saying that to people?”
According to information he found from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the whole water system needs to be flushed before it can safely be used in people’s homes. But he believes that LADWP won’t talk about it because “if you start telling people you got to flush out your system, there’s going to be a lot of scrutiny on what the hell’s going on and people will start looking into it.”
Following Pakucko’s interview with the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol, LADWP sent out a final update on Aug. 12 that strongly recommended its customers flush their pipes methodically every five minutes to move water that stagnated. Additionally, for customers that were impacted by the Boil Water Notice, they will receive a $20 bill credit for water flushing.
Pakucko doesn’t know if the repair to the valve is a permanent fix or just a temporary one, but to him, it doesn’t matter.
“I’m not drinking that freaking water, and I’m not showering in it.”
He plans on installing a filter system throughout his house before using the water. For the time being, though, he’s using the shower at a friend’s place and bottled water for other needs.