Los Angeles’ water system is so old — and money to replace it is so short — that officials are left playing a dangerous game of duplication.
They know that major parts of the system are in dire need of replacement. But with limited time and money, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has no choice but to focus on the lines it believes are most likely to burst.
Sometimes, it can get there before the big leak. But as West Hollywood found out this month, sometimes pipes burst well before help arrives.
The Westside has experienced the highest number of leaks in the entire city’s water distribution system in the past 10 years, according to the utility.
Experts say the age of the pipes, the corroded soil in which they are buried and the pressure changes in the pipes that send water to hilly areas all contribute to the aging system cracking.
The region has been the site of two major spills in the past few years, including a 17 million gallon leak in West Hollywood last week and a 10 million gallon spill that flooded Westwood and damaged parts of UCLA in 2014.
Both of those areas had pipes that were over a hundred years old. But the whole system is not very good.
More than 30% of the DWP’s main lines are over 80 years old and at least 6% of them are considered critical for replacement. In a 2018 survey, more than 50% of DWP line items were over 65 years old and 11% were over 100 years old.
The utility prioritizes replacement projects based on a variety of factors including line age, leak history and the effects of failure in a given location. DWP engineers weigh those factors when prioritizing pipes for replacement, assigning a graded grade to each water pipe based on its likelihood of failure and the potential consequences of a break.
About 6% of major water systems received D and F grades, according to a 2015 analysis by The Times.
Trunk lines seem to be in better shape than main utility lines. Data provided by the agency showed that less than 1% of its main lines have a “D” or “F” condition rating, according to a study by the DWP in 2022.
Los Angeles is one of many cities across the country fighting a major battle to solve a multibillion-dollar problem buried underground.
Like many other major cities, Los Angeles’ vast network of water pipes and main lines were installed in the early 20th century and are at risk of breaking, disrupting service and flooding communities.
“It’s a very serious problem, and society as a whole is not investing enough in infrastructure … especially water infrastructure,” said Lucio Soibelman, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at USC.
Los Angeles’ water system is leaking every day, which doesn’t usually get much attention, but a few major breaks in the past decade have renewed concern.
A broken trunk line in 2014 on Sunset Boulevard in Westwood sent millions of gallons of water onto the UCLA campus, flooding several buildings and causing several million dollars in damage.
Last week, a 110-year-old steel trunk line pipe — part of a major arterial system that carries water from lakes and reservoirs to smaller distribution highways across Los Angeles — burst in West Hollywood. The break left a huge hole in Sunset Boulevard and sent about 17 million gallons of water into surrounding neighborhoods, closing businesses, and flooding homes and underground parking lots.
The DWP has an $8-billion, five-year Water System Capital Plan to tackle the problem of aging pipes.
However, it is unlikely that the utility will be able to continue with the necessary improvements, experts say. DWP officials admit they are frustrated by budget constraints, staff limitations, long project timelines and the scale of repairs required.
“Even with unlimited funding and human resources, we can only do so much to not burden our local communities with traffic impacts and disruptions to local residents and businesses,” a spokesperson for the organization told The Times.
The DWP plans to replace about 45 kilometers of the main line, which brings water to individual services across neighbourhoods, this financial year. Thirty-three percent of those lines were rated as critical to replace based on factors including age, leaking history, pipeline material and surrounding geological conditions. Another 54% were rated as moderately important and 13% were considered moderately important, according to the aid.
The agency expects to replace a little more than a kilometer of trunk line across the city this fiscal year. But over the next four years, the DWP says it plans to speed up the replacement of high-risk lines to 5 miles a year. The government is not yet clear on how it plans to fund such projects.
There are approximately 547 miles of trunk line underground across the city and 6,780 miles of distribution pipes, or main lines, in Los Angeles. There are more than 40 trunk line projects in the agency’s capital development plan, which will be built from now until 2057.
DWP has identified a trunk line on Century Boulevard near LAX, one that brings water to Rampart Village, Silver Lake and Echo Park, and another in the Sunland/Tujunga area of the city as some of the most important things to replace this year, according to the agency.
The agency tries to work with other departments in case other public works can be done at the same time, reducing the times they have to dig in certain areas, said Anselmo Collins, DWP chief executive and senior assistant general manager.
“We are trying to do as many projects as we can, making sure that we don’t disrupt traffic in all areas of the city at the same time,” he said.
But it’s not as simple as just deciding what project to do and digging in, he added. Officials must design the project, obtain necessary permits and approvals and coordinate with other departments before work begins.
“It’s really complicated,” Collins said.
To help stop leaks becoming major problems, the DWP has deployed teams in recent years with acoustic technology to help identify small leaks before major breaks occur.
“You can plug into the pipe and listen and see where there might be a leak because there is water flowing,” said Collins. “This is a leak that we haven’t seen yet. Unfortunately, we will still have situations where it will leak and we need to respond quickly.”
Major cities across the country are also facing the effects of aging water infrastructure.
A survey of water industry leaders by the nonprofit American Water Works Assn. this year indicated that infrastructure renewal and replacement, and financing of infrastructure development are two of the main concerns.
Another report of this organization estimates that in the next 25 years the needs for the construction of drinking water infrastructure are expected to reach $2.4 trillion across the country. To close the gap, an additional $56.6 billion – on top of what is currently spent – will need to be invested annually from 2026 to 2050. Otherwise, water prices would more than double, according to the report.
If fully funded by increased water rates, an estimated 30.4 million households would spend more than 2.5% of their income on drinking water, according to the report.
And it’s not just replacing aging pipes that puts a strain on utilities.
Emergency repairs or system failures almost always result in requests for overtime, stretching the budget and leading to burnout among employees, according to more than half of the managers who responded to the survey.
“There are other effects that the public doesn’t understand and we don’t analyze,” said Soibelman. “The beauty of this is that if the public can understand how big the costs are due to infrastructure failure, we can end up investing more in maintaining our infrastructure as it should be.”
