DWP to Spend $20 Million to Rebuild Pump Station

Los Angeles water officials Thursday ordered that a key North Hollywood pumping and chlorination station be rebuilt to meet earthquake standards and be equipped with turbines that will produce enough hydroelectric power for 4,700 homes.

The $20-million project is expected to increase drought protection for some areas of the San Fernando Valley, which will be able to share ground water from North Hollywood wells when Los Angeles Aqueduct water is scarce.

Water from the North Hollywood wells now goes almost exclusively to customers outside the Valley, but in times of drought, the station’s increased pumping capacity will make it possible to also supply water to some areas of North Hollywood, Van Nuys, Reseda, Sherman Oaks and Studio City, officials said.

But under the construction schedule approved by the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, a roof will not be put on the 3.1-million-gallon storage reservoir at 11801 Vanowen St. until 1992--18 years after state health officials advised the Department of Water and Power to cover all small reservoirs to protect against vandalism, air pollution and wind-blown debris.

Twenty-nine percent of the Los Angeles water supply--enough for 1 million people--is collected or passes through the 1.7-acre pumping, chlorination and reservoir complex, wedged between Morella and Hinds avenues east of the Hollywood Freeway. The water, from North Hollywood wells and the Los Angeles Aqueduct, goes mostly to customers in the Hollywood-Central City-East Los Angeles areas.

According to an environmental impact report prepared by the DWP, the site’s main building, which houses the pumps and was completed in 1930, is “seismically deficient”--lacking the minimum degree of earthquake resistance required by the city code.

The report, which was approved without debate by commissioners, said the pumping and chlorination buildings will be replaced by a single rectangular building 58 feet tall. By installing turbines to harness the highly pressurized aqueduct water, the DWP will generate about $1.7-million worth of electric power a year, the report said.

Most of the improvements will be completed by the end of 1990, according to a schedule outlined in the report. However, one phase of the project--construction of a roof for the 1.2-acre reservoir--is not scheduled for completion until 1992.

Apart from the risk of vandalism, open reservoirs allow larger amounts of algae, leaves, animal waste and similar debris. Chlorine reacts with such natural organic material to form small amounts of trihalomethanes, a group of suspected cancer-causing compounds. The less contamination, the less chlorine needed for disinfection and the less trihalomethanes form.

In explaining the need for the roof, the environmental report referred to a 1974 recommendation from the Department of Health Services that all small reservoirs be covered. But the report did not discuss why this has not yet been done.

Thomas Erb, DWP environmental affairs coordinator, said the 1974 state recommendation urged a number of improvements.

The $146-million Sylmar water filtration plant--intended to reduce turbidity, or cloudiness, of aqueduct water--was one big-ticket improvement in response to the state health department request. Moreover, some of the city’s small reservoirs have been covered or replaced by enclosed tanks, officials said.

‘Spending Lots of Money’

“We can’t do everything at once,” Erb said. “We’re spending lots of money, and we have to take” the improvements “one at a time.”

Officials estimated that it will cost about $1 million to cover the reservoir.

Water and power commissioners actually voted Thursday to approve the final environmental impact report. However, that is tantamount to ordering the project, which will come back before the board for award of a construction contract.

Only two people showed up for an April public hearing on the North Hollywood project, and no one raised objections at Thursday’s meeting. Erb said the project evidently had not generated any controversy because “all we’re doing is upgrading what’s there.”

According to the report, five 50-foot-tall cedar trees on the western edge of the site will be destroyed, but landscaping will be added when the work is done.

During two to three months of construction, one of Vanowen’s westbound lanes will be closed between Morella and Hinds, the report said.

Added pumping and electric equipment will mean greater noise. But sound-muffling walls and doors will be used to eliminate noise problems, according to the report.