MWD Staff Shunts Pipeline Proposal : Backs Canal Over San Fernando-to-Glendora Water Tunnel

A proposed 33-mile, $709-million water pipeline along the northern San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys lost ground Monday when the staff of the Metropolitan Water District threw its weight behind a less-costly expansion of a canal running through the Antelope Valley.

The staff recommendation was immediately attacked by several veteran directors of the district, for whom the massive pipeline has long been a cherished project.

The directors vowed to press for the underground project when the agency’s 51-member board votes in Feburary or March on how to expand capacity to meet increasing demand for water in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

10-Year Delay Sought

Neither project will be developed if district directors who represent Orange and San Diego counties succeed in efforts announced Monday to obtain a 10-year delay on any decision regarding expansion.

Because the district apportions costs based on the usage of district water, residents of San Diego and Orange counties, who get about 90% of their water from the district, would pay much of the cost for expansion--estimated at $13 per household per year--but would receive few benefits.

Los Angeles city residents would pay little or nothing toward the cost, since the city gathers its own water.

The expanded distribution system is needed to carry California Water Project water from the base of the Tehachapi Mountains north of the San Fernando Valley to high-growth areas east of Los Angeles, said district general manager Carl Boronkay.

The final decision is expected to be made either Feb. 12 or March 12 by directors of the district, a state-chartered agency that distributes water to water districts serving 13 million residents in Southern California.

After a lengthy discussion by directors in Los Angeles on Monday, Boronkay predicted the board would approve the staff recommendation to spend $525 million to expand the California Aqueduct’s east branch, a canal that stretches 93 miles from the Kern-Los Angeles county line, through the Antelope Valley to Lake Perris near Riverside.

While the aqueduct expansion project is nearly $200 million cheaper than the pipeline, staff studies indicate it would use about $5 million more in energy each year than the pipeline.

The pipeline, which has been on the district drawing boards for nearly two decades, would begin a mile north of the city of San Fernando and travel through Sunland, Tujunga, La Crescenta, Altadena and Monrovia to Glendora.

It would be a concrete-lined tunnel about 15 feet in diameter and lay about 100 feet below the surface.

Disruption of Neighborhoods

A district spokesman said most residents would be unaware of the tunnel construction unless they lived near one of the construction entrances, which will be spaced about a mile apart.

Either project would take about 10 years to complete.

A.B. Smedley of Pasadena, who has been a district director for nearly 20 years, said he was disappointed with the staff report, particularly since the pipeline has been a staff-recommended project “long considered the main backbone of the MWD system to deliver state water.”

He argued that the east branch canal runs too close to the San Andreas Fault near Palmdale and is thus more vulnerable to earthquake damage, while the proposed pipeline route is a “solid block of granite in which we could build a tunnel.”

Boronkay said that increased demand in Riverside and San Bernardino counties comes at a time when the district’s supply of water from the Colorado River is no longer assured.

Court rulings have held that Arizona is entitled to a greater share of Colorado River water. Upon completion of the Central Arizona Project within a year or two, the district will have to petition the federal government for its annual share of river water, Boronkay said, rather than “just calling them up and telling them how much to send.”

While conceding that the district might continue receiving the same quantity of water from the Colorado River, Boronkay said it “would not be responsible, given the importance of water to our economy, to fail to provide an assured source of water. That is why we need one of these two projects.”

Directors in San Diego and Orange counties say there is adequate surplus Colorado River water in the foreseeable future to warrant delaying an expansion decision.

Harry Griffen, dean of San Diego County directors, said, “We feel strongly that nothing has to be done for at least 10 years, and maybe not even then.”

He disputed Boronkay’s assessment that most directors back the canal expansion project. He predicted that most directors will not make a decision until they confer with the local water districts they represent.