In Focus
LADWP Dipped Into Its Vast Talent Pool to Restore Water Service in Granada Hills-Porter Ranch
By Michael Ventre
It took one uncooperative valve to deny water to potentially 9,200 customers in the Granada Hills-Porter Ranch area. It took an extraordinary display of cooperation by LADWP and its partners to make sure all those customers got all the water they needed.
On August 5, 2025, while LADWP water system crews were making repairs at a pump station that connects to a 10-million-gallon water tank that services that particular area, a valve that controls the flow of water broke and failed to reopen. That meant water flowing into a 54-inch-diameter pipe that normally would serve the area was cut off.
“I would like to shine the spotlight on the dedicated men and women of LADWP who worked round-the-clock to respond to this emergency. In the field or in the office, away from their families, pulling long hours, in extreme heat. They were focused on the task at hand and committed to getting water back and running. Their innovation, creative thinking, ability to pivot and come up with solutions is so remarkable, and we are proud to work alongside them every day.”
Anselmo Collins, Senior Assistant General Manager - Water System
The Anatomy of a Water Emergency
Collins spoke later to LADWP employees about the challenge of this particular event.
“We had a pump station that needed to have some work done,” Collins said of the facility, which is just northwest of the L.A. Reservoir. “In order to do the work we had to shut down the trunk line. We closed the valve, and the work was done to fix the leak at the pump station. On August 5 our goal was to open that valve back up and start pumping again. Unfortunately when our crews tried to open that valve, it wouldn’t open.”
John Cox, Director of Water Distribution, said closure of the valve is supposed to happen after 488 turns of a wheel. “When we got to 468 it broke,” he explained. “We knew we had a problem so we called our large valve team.”
Knowing this meant a potential water outage to over 9,200 customer connections, or approximately 31,000 residents of the area, LADWP brought pumps online to continue to provide water to most customers; only customers in higher elevations of the area lost total pressure. Still, customers were asked not to use their water because that would deplete the system while repairs were being made, and also because a Boil Water Notice was put into effect.
As soon as water started diminishing in the tank, the Water System team had to determine how to replenish the water. “We implemented our Incident Command,” Collins said. “We had folks from Water Operations and Water Distribution out in the field. We brought water from areas that typically don’t feed this area to put water back in the system. We installed inter-system pumps (ISPs), and we worked with a vendor that allowed us to bring in even more water.”
Typically water in that area flows east to west, Collins said, and then it flows south, because the pressure zones are low there. “We found two locations where we typically regulate the water from the high pressure zone to a lower pressure zone, and instead of regulating down, we took them offline and installed pumps and reversed the flow. So now we’re pumping from south (to) north to get the water into the system.
“We also had areas where we had system dividers, meaning you have two different pressure zones, in between there’s a valve that’s typically closed. We have hydrants on both sides of that. We could put a pump there and pump from the lower zone to the upper zone.”
An Unexpected Assist from an Unlikely Source
Collins and his team also had an added asset, an outside contractor called Wildfire Water Solutions. After realizing that the ISPs in use weren’t enough to meet the entire demand of the system, Collins and team recalled a demonstration a week before by that company at Stone Canyon Reservoir, and sought out their help in this emergency. Wildfire Water Solutions are firefighters who have propriety technology to be able to augment the flow and pressure to fight fires. Collins and Steve Cole, Water Engineering and Technical Services (WETS) Managing Water Utility Engineer, along with CEO and Chief Engineer Janisse Quinones, all had the idea at the same time to bring on this company for help, which came in the form of 27 staffers and 12 pumps, along with a few miles of pipe. Water was then sent to the LADWP trunk line that typically would get water from the pump station.
Adam Perez joined LADWP in 2002. He was promoted to Director of Water Operations and held the title for exactly two days when this massive event landed on his desk in Bishop. He immediately shifted into fact-finding and situational awareness mode.
“Water Operations Division (WOD) supported by trying to establish water pressure to the 1750 and 1950 water service zones,” Perez explained of the same zones referenced by Collins earlier. “Overall WOD used ISPs to pump water from lower elevation service zones to the higher zones. One of the main pumping sites was from the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) LA 25 connection."
“As the recently promoted Director of Operations,” he added, “I spent many hours in the field and at the WOD Incident Command center overseeing, but most importantly learning from, the dedicated operations staff supporting the incident. It was my first time working closely with the Metro Operations staff through incident management and response and I was impressed.”
He was also intrigued by the innovative contributions from Wildfire Water Solutions.
“This was the first time these pumps that are normally used for firefighting were used in this way.” Perez said. “The concept was very interesting, to try to provide pressure into a closed water distribution system.”
The water being pumped also had to cross Balboa Blvd., a busy roadway. Fortunately, there was a culvert that facilitated the laying of the pipe and distribution of water. By doing that, LADWP could then take water provided by the MWD LA 25 source and put it into Water System pipes.
“When we started to think of ways to bring more water to the Susana Trunk Line,” Collins explained, “I called the MWD General Manager and told him what we needed. He immediately assembled a team of MWD managers, and they met with staff and jointly came up with the idea of using their LA25 connection. Their collaboration was instrumental in helping us.”
Once water started reentering the system, people in the area started to use it – mostly for irrigation in the early morning and in hot temperatures – which caused a problem. A major effort by the Department and its Communications and Community Affairs Division, which performed a vast array of outreach efforts, got the word out asking folks not to use the water for now, and rather to use the bottled water and other facilities like toilets, showers and laundry that were being provided.
A Difficult Dig in Sweltering Heat
Water Distribution did the heavy digging. Some machinery was used. But the malfunctioning valve was 20 feet down, and shrouded by a cockeyed grid of utility lines – a high-pressure gas line, a high-pressure oil line, and fiber optics lines. That meant a good deal of the digging had to be done by hand, with the thermometer consistently at the 100-degree mark. Once the valve was reached, the welders took over, cut out the troublesome valve and replaced it with a straight piece of pipe.
“We are trained to do this. There is a technique in this situation (because of the maze of utility lines) where you don’t stab at it while you’re digging. You can’t have four or five workers digging at a time or else they get in each other’s way. We rotated people out for safety, every 20 minutes. We also rigged up umbrellas over the excavation to create some shade. We had five or six five-gallon jugs of ice water for drinking, and people (designated) to keep refilling them.”
John Cox, Director of Water Distribution
Jason Saunders is a Senior Water Utility Supervisor who oversaw two crews that worked 12-hour shifts. “We are used to doing this type of work all the time,” he said. “The difference in this case is that there were a lot of eyes on us. There was a lot of foot traffic around the area. There was a sense of urgency.”
Collins also noted that because LADWP couldn’t put water in the tank, it got to the point where the pressure dropped below 5 PSI. “When that happens,” he said, “we are required by law, by the state, to issue a Boil Water Notice. Because we lost pressure, there is the potential for contaminants to enter the pipe.”
Serving the Public While Solving the Problem
LADWP also activated the Water Emergency Command Center, which provides support in many ways to workers in the field as well as bottled water to customers. Over two million bottles of water were handed out to folks who pulled up to three distribution stations in the area, through a coordinated effort stemming from the Truesdale Training Center. In addition, LADWP provided recycled water for non-potable uses, along with portable showers and laundry facilities nearby during the emergency.
Raul Fletes, LADWP Fleet Services manager, is an excellent example of an unsung hero among many. He helped lead the complex effort to establish locations and logistics for temporary showers, laundry facilities and restrooms – all ADA compliant – so they were equally spaced out within the outage area. He also helped coordinate repairs, water distribution centers, mobile deliveries and other tasks. There were LADWP efforts that even extended to providing water for horses and fish ponds. “Seeing the collaboration between Joint, Water and Power employees working toward a mutual cause always reminds me we are one Department,” he said.
Once the problem was fixed in the early hours of August 11, and water began to flow out of people’s taps again, LADWP’s Water Quality team had to make sure it was safe for drinking before lifting the Boil Water Notice that was in place. Working in consultation with the state, samples were taken from six to eight locations.
“One big advantage was having our own state-certified drinking water lab so we could work later through the night to accelerate the process. It still takes 18 hours, but we saved ourselves an additional six to 18 more hours. I think we all did a great job of being prepared. Preparation was indeed the key factor in placing this sizeable dilemma into the folder marked handled.”
Jonathan Leung, Director of Water Quality
Once all the sample results came back favorably, there was great rejoicing – LADWP handled another emergency, and the customers in the affected area got their water service back to normal.
The Response to LADWP’s Response
Zoraya Oliver-Griffin, LADWP’s Chief Climate Resiliency and Emergency Management Officer, noted how, in emergency response, it is critical to quickly convene key response personnel and establish situational awareness and form a common operating picture in order to formulate and implement an initial response strategy.
“In emergency response every minute counts. Most impressive was the level of commitment demonstrated by our employees to ensure a safe response, while utilizing innovation and creativity required to meet very dynamic and risk-filled conditions.”
Zoraya Oliver-Griffin, LADWP’s Chief Climate Resiliency and Emergency Management Officer
Oliver-Griffin estimated that upwards of 950 employees were engaged in the response to this emergency, with coordination from the Department Emergency Operations Center (DEOC) and the City EOC. She said that breaks down to 80 to 90 responders from across the organization that showed up every day, 24 hours a day, within an Incident Command System (ICS) that traditionally has been used by first responders and is now also being used by the utility industry.
She added that the efforts by the Communications and Community Affairs team to get the word out to the public regarding developments in the emergency as well as available resources were vitally important. The team developed and employed myriad tactics to keep the community informed, from onsite posters, email notifications, social media and media interviews. One of the priorities besides bottled water locations was a continual reminder that the Boil Water Notice was in effect. And communications even included video clips on social media of Collins himself, which she said went “a long, long way” in achieving overall success of the operation, especially since this happened not that long after the Pacific Palisades fire in January.
“It’s impressive to see how far we’ve come since our Palisades Fire response in January, and even before that, with a heat storm in September,” she said. “That level of maturity in emergency response doesn’t just happen. It is extraordinary what is happening at LADWP.”
