He’s Tapped Into the City’s Wasteful Water Practices

Officer Ed of the Water Police was on day watch, working foot patrol in Eagle Rock, when he first caught a glimpse of the suspect.

An old pipe partly buried in a dusty public parkway next to La Roda Avenue was leaking water in eight places, spurting over the curb and into the street.

It was just a trickle. But it was enough to send Edwin E. Neumann’s blood surging.

“There’s a drought going on!” he fumed. “The city asks everyone else to conserve water. Yet it doesn’t follow its own advice. There’s no excuse for things like this.”

Neumann considers wasting water a crime. For more than a year, he has conducted his own anti-leak patrols each day around his Yosemite Drive home.

Most Neighbors Conserving

He has discovered that most of his neighbors are conserving water just like Los Angeles city officials have asked them to.

But apparently that does not hold for the city itself. Neumann has fingered dozens of leaky fire plugs and broken sprinklers on public greenbelts since starting his unofficial campaign. He has filed repeated complaints with city officials about such things as street-sweeper drivers who leave hydrant valves partly open and park workers who sloppily water sidewalks and streets along with shrubs and flowers.

A retired Eagle Rock High School gardener, Neumann, 69, started his campaign after receiving literature from the city’s Department of Water and Power urging that water be conserved. He said he suddenly remembered that a fire hydrant across the street from the high school had been dripping for years--and that became his first target.

Despite his best efforts, however, Neumann cannot persuade city workers to just say no to drips, he said.

It can take hours on the telephone to track down the right person to complain to after a leak is noticed, he said. And when he does get through, chances are good that he will get an excuse instead of a promise that the water-wasting will be corrected, he grumbled.

Water Loss a Concern

City officials agree that water loss is a concern as Los Angeles enters its third year of drought. But they assert that municipal work crews fix leaks as fast as they hear about them.

They hear plenty from Neumann, who watches for suspicious water in gutters as he takes a daily, two-mile morning walk through his neighborhood.

Sometimes, such as when he sees tennis courts being hosed down at public parks, Neumann knows exactly where to complain. Other times, real detective work is required.

At La Roda Avenue, Neumann had to decide whether to report the pipe with the eight leaks to the city’s Department of Water and Power, its Public Works Department or its Department of Recreation and Parks.

If it was a public works matter, he had the additional choice of calling that department’s Street Maintenance Division, its Street Use Inspection Division or perhaps its Street Tree Division--since the pipe might have been installed to irrigate eucalyptus and oak trees that line the parkway.

Call Referred

As it turned out, the DWP referred the La Roda leaks to the Recreation and Parks Department because the parkway adjoins a city park. A parks department telephone operator promised to have a maintenance crew check on the pipe--although she warned that it might end up as the responsibility of the street maintenance section.

“It would sound funny, except for the fact that all you’re trying to do is help by reporting these things,” Neumann said.

“I’ve had to make eight calls to get one leaky fire hydrant turned off. The thing is, it’s leaking to begin with because some guy was too danged lazy to give it an extra turn to shut it off. They’re beginning to look at me as a nuisance.”

Some city officials admire Neumann’s tenacity, however.

“I would say he’s a value to the city and I’d like to have more people like him, even if other departments wouldn’t,” said Shirley Minser, a field deputy for City Councilman Richard Alatorre. She has helped direct Neumann’s complaints to the proper agencies.

“I sometimes have the problem of being referred around to different departments myself. When they bounce you around, you get frustrated.”

Minser said a consolidated leak hot line--where water-wasting of all types could be reported--might benefit the city, particularly if the drought continues.

Department of Water and Power officials say the rainfall predictions are not yet in for the coming winter season. So they are continuing to urge Los Angeles residents to cut water usage by 10% through voluntary conservation.

Residents using water-saving shower heads and toilet tank inserts handed out free by the DWP have reduced usage by about 5% a year during the last two years, said Ed Freudenburg, a public affairs manager for the department.

The department’s 24-hour “water trouble” telephone line, which is designed to receive reports of water outages, is available to people calling in leaks, Freudenburg said.

But that line is often busy. A caller reporting a leaky pipe recently was put on hold for nine minutes before being referred to another city agency.

Hydrants Become Gushers

Larry McReynolds, head of water operations for the DWP, said work crews try to repair leaky pipes and fire plugs the same day they are reported, although hydrants that turn into gushers when hit by cars get fixed first. He said about 6,200 of the city’s 54,000 fire hydrants require repairs each year.

Back along the foot beat in Eagle Rock, those who have come under Neumann’s scrutiny said they share his feelings about conservation.

“You’re right, there’s a lot of water wasted,” said Pete Miramontez, a gardener at Yosemite Recreation Center, where Neumann has chided park workers for such things as over-watering ivy and hosing tennis courts.

Miramontez was watering a playground that the lawn sprinkler doesn’t reach. He was using a hose attached to an aging, leaking faucet that was spewing a rivulet down a dirt pathway.

Neumann said he plans to keep up his vigilance until authorities get serious about conservation and come up with real water police patrols.

Those who waste water, he said, should end up in hot water.