The local waterworks district says Malibu is using too much water during a time of drought, and that there is a disconnect in reaching customers about their water usage.
By Nora Fleming / Special to The Malibu Times
The Malibu Public Safety and Public Works commissions held a joint meeting last week to discuss Malibu’s access to water and the overuse of it by many area residents who have ignored requests to limit water consumption during the current drought.
Officials from Los Angeles County Waterworks District 29 also attended the meeting and offered suggestions for residents to adopt a more “green friendly” approach to water usage in their homes, which officials said has been a challenge in Malibu to mitigate the impacts of the drought.
“There seems to be a disconnect reaching customers through standard techniques [in Malibu],” said David Pedersen, assistant division engineer for District 29, which serves Malibu.
Pedersen said it has been hard to contact many Malibu residents due to the frequency of residents being out of town, having an accountant handle their bills (including water) and having landscapers or gardeners regulate the amount of water used outdoors, which, on average, isn’t used conservatively, due to maintaining what Pedersen called the “lush vegetation” on many Malibu properties.
To work around the “disconnect,” the agency has targeted area press with inserts and fliers containing tips for residents on how to save water. It has also offered the opportunity of having a representative stop by residents’ homes to evaluate water use, install water conservative utilities, such as low-pressure shower heads, and make recommendations on becoming more water eco-conscious.
“We hope to find influential spokespeople or community leaders who can serve as ambassadors and reach out to people,” Pederson said. “We want to appeal to their environmental sense of stewardship and create an overall movement [to improve water conservation efforts].”
He said he hopes this will be the change Malibu residents, who seem to ignore increased water bill rates for excessive consumption or fliers about saving water, might need. If water consumption continues to be abused during the drought, water supply allocations might not be far off in the future.
The ABCs of Malibu’s water
The waterworks agency also explained how Malibu obtains its water, and about problems that can occur with water supply and how these problems are handled. Options for water backup in the case of emergencies were also discussed.
Malibu is part of District 29, an area that includes Marina del Rey and Topanga, and is connected to a water main in Culver City at Venice and Sawtelle boulevards, which feeds more than 53 water tanks and 32 pump stations in just District 29 alone.
The waterworks district has received a state loan of $5.5 million to switch District 29 from the Culver City main to a main located at Sepulveda Boulevard. At this time, District 29 is the last district to receive water from the Culver City main, which can result in low water pressure and lengthened receiving time when water demand is high, such as during the summer months when people are watering their lawns or during fire season.
Attaching to the main on Sepulveda, less than half a mile away, will put the district higher on the receiving end and will result in better pressure and quicker access, according to the waterworks presentation. The water demand in District 29 is supposed to increase from 10,500 acre-feet to 15,100 acre-feet by 2030.
Water storage tanks are located off the main that runs through Pacific Coast Highway and house water that can be used both in an emergency and during peak times of demand, such as when residents are showering in the morning. They can also be used for residential fires, but are not meant for brush/wildfires.
During the meeting, Malibu resident Ozzie Silna voiced his concern over the lack of stored water to meet the needs for area fires.
“I think the issue needs to be re-evaluated,” Silna said. “It was determined that if you fought the [burning] vegetation in the last fires, the embers wouldn’t have spread the fire [as far as it did].”
He added that limiting development might provide an increase on water supply for the city.
Other Malibu residents who attended the meeting seem concerned that the waterworks division was not safety conscious enough to meet the city’s water needs.
The district’s pipes and system were built in the 1960s. Life expectancy of the pipes, according to waterworks representatives, is roughly 40 years, give or take, depending on soil, material and opposing factors and forces, which could mean some pipes are near the end of their lifespan.
Norm Haney, a Malibu resident, spoke with concern about an attitude of non-interference he believes has been taken both by California Department of Transportation and Waterworks District 29 in regards to potential water leaks or pipes breaking. Haney said he owns the property where a break occurred several years ago, which took two weeks to fix. Nothing has been done, he said, to prevent it from occurring again.
“I would like to see District 29 approach Caltrans and the City of Malibu to resolve this issue. District 29 is not proactive about preventing problems before they occur. This is one issue that can be safeguarded and should be,” Haney said.
In 17 years, the Los Angeles Waterworks Capital Improvement Project has completed 29 million projects within Malibu, or in cities that serve Malibu, repairing pipelines and leaks. Some of these have been major, but most have been minor, representatives said.
Currently the district is working on repairing a water main at Ramirez Canyon.