City “Should Have Sufficient Water” to Last Current 10-Day Shutdown of Water Imports

After the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) stopped delivering water to Pasadena on Monday morning for a planned 10-day shutdown, Pasadena Water & Power Interim General Manager Shari Thomas updated the Pasadena City Council as to the City’s water availability through March 10.

“MWD interrupted its water supply delivery to Pasadena at 6 a.m. (Monday) morning,” said Thomas. The plant construction work is scheduled to be completed by Thursday, March 10, and water deliveries to Pasadena would resume that evening, she said.

The City purchases 60% of its regular water supply from the MWD through the Weymouth Water Treatment facility in La Verne. That plant is currently undergoing major construction, and thus, the City of Pasadena will rely on its six wells and current reservoir supplies to service the City’s water needs until the end of the shutdown.

The actual pipeline that delivers the water to Pasadena from the Weymouth plant is “large enough to drive a vehicle through,” said Thomas, and the water would still take 12 to fifteen hours to travel the distance necessary, even if the water delivery is resumed on schedule.

The initial March 10 delivery would be used to replenish Pasadena’s reservoirs first, said Thomas, who anticipated that the levels would be considerably diminished by then.

Level 2 irrigation would be allowed by Saturday, March 12, as fresh water imports will again be flowing.

At the time of the shutdown, the City’s reservoirs were at approximately 88%, thanks to conservation efforts by the city’s residents, said Thomas.

“Unfortunately, there is not a drop of El Niño rain in sight and the temperatures are in the 80s,” Thomas added, “so we fully recognize the sacrifice that some are making, and we could not thank them enough for that.”

Pumps at city wells are running at capacity, said Thomas, with a total of six wells available, if necessary.

“If everything goes according to plan, we should have sufficient water to last the full ten days,” said Thomas. “We are constantly monitoring our water supply, and are in communication with the MWD staff as well,” she added. The MWD will be reporting to the Pasadena Water and Power department every day during the 10-day period.

Asked by Councilmember John J. Kennedy about contingency plans “should something go wrong,” Thomas responded that the city has enough capacity to get through the ten day period, and should the MWD take longer than ten days to complete its construction work, the PWP could bring additional wells online to increase capacity, “in the case of an emergency, such as a fire,” said Thomas.

Such a move would mean, however, that the MWD had not fulfilled its construction agreement, and that the City had not met its own conservation requirements. The additional well water also may not meet state water quality requirements.

“Bringing on those wells would be an absolute last resort,” said Thomas, “so we are not suggesting that that’s what’s going to happen. The only time we would have to do that would be in the case of an extreme emergency, where we could not provide water for firefighting and other emergency purposes. Under no other circumstances would that happen.”

Thomas added that should such an emergency occur, residents would be notified to boil their water before drinking.

Assistant PWP manager Sean Quan also noted that there are water sources in neighboring cities that Pasadena is connected to, and that should it become necessary, water would also be available from them. Contingency arrangements are already in place.

Kennedy asked Mayor Terry Tornek to schedule a meeting “somewhere down the line” to discuss the city’s overall water situation in terms of quality and availability.