Water Flowing Again as Crews Fix Damaged L.A. Aqueduct

Flash-flood damage to the aqueduct that supplies Los Angeles with 75% of its water was repaired ahead of schedule, and water has resumed flowing, officials said Monday.

Water began moving through the Los Angeles Aqueduct about 8 p.m. Saturday after extensive repair work, said Mindy Berman, a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spokeswoman.

Crews laboring around the clock completed the repairs about three days ahead of schedule, she said.

The amount of water flowing through the damaged area will increase over several days to its previous rate of about 600 cubic feet per second, aqueduct engineer Dennis Williams said.

Cost of $800,000

Repairs took 12 days and costs are expected to total about $800,000, Williams said.

“They replaced about 800 linear feet of concrete panels on the sides of the aqueduct. That’s pretty fast work,” said Jay Malinowski, a Metropolitan Water District spokesman.

An Aug. 8 flash flood on Olancha Creek dumped tons of debris into a two-mile stretch of the aqueduct 180 miles north of Los Angeles.

Another storm on Aug. 10 soaked the ground, causing parts of the concrete lining to buckle along an 800-foot stretch of the aqueduct.

Most of the water that would have flowed through the damaged section of the 338-mile aqueduct was held in Crowley Lake north of Bishop.

The new flow of water was scheduled to reach Bouquet Reservoir, the first of several local reservoirs, north of Los Angeles near California 14, late Monday or early today, Malinowski said.