Agencies End Dispute Over Cost of Reinforcing Dam

After months of bickering, two Antelope Valley water agencies have finally agreed to work jointly on a proposed $7-million project to strengthen the historic Littlerock Dam, which the state considers unsafe in an earthquake.

The 65-year-old dam and adjoining reservoir are a major source of drinking water for the eastern part of Palmdale and nearby Littlerock. But state officials have threatened to order the reservoir abandoned unless the dam is upgraded to withstand a major earthquake.

On Wednesday, the Palmdale Water District and the Littlerock Creek Irrigation District, the dam’s co-owners, agreed to share the costs of the improvement project equally, ending a dispute that has continued since October.

Water officials said the deal should help the dam project’s progress. “The way things are growing here, we need every drop of water we can get. The dam is a good supply of water, and it’s clean and relatively cheap,” said Dennis LaMoreaux, an official with the Palmdale Water District.

At issue in the dispute was which of the two agencies would have the lead role in the project. The governing board of the Palmdale district Wednesday voted 5-0 to give that designation to the Littlerock Creek district, which approved the same agreement earlier this month.

The dispute had threatened to delay an $853,500 feasibility study arranged by the two water agencies as a prelude to strengthening the dam. One plan being studied is to bolster the existing dam with a new concrete dam.

The firm hired by the two agencies, Woodward-Clyde Consultants, expects the feasibility study and an environmental review to take at least a year. A recent state timetable forecast that a contract to upgrade the dam could be awarded in early 1991 and the work finished by the end of that year.

Although the two agencies have agreed to share the costs, the funding picture remains uncertain. Both are hoping the state will pay about $3 million from available dam construction funds, but the state has yet to make a commitment.

If the state funds materialize, the two agencies would each be left with a bill of about $2 million. Littlerock Creek officials have yet to say how they will raise their share. The Palmdale district plans to cover its share through fees it collects from building developers.

Upon its completion in 1924, the Littlerock Dam was, at about 170 feet, the tallest multiple-arch dam in the United States. It was designed by noted dam engineer John Eastwood and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. But its history has been controversial.

Within a few years of its completion, state dam officials were challenging the safety of Eastwood’s design and warning the dam might collapse if filled with water. In recent years, concern shifted to earthquake danger, since the San Andreas Fault is only two miles away.

State studies have warned that an earthquake of magnitude 8 along the fault could cause the dam to collapse, sending hundreds of millions of gallons of water through surrounding areas and into the town of Littlerock, located about 10 miles southeast of Palmdale.

The 700-foot-long dam catches spring rain and snow runoff flowing northward out of the San Gabriel Mountains through Little Rock Creek. Although nearly dry for some of the year, the reservoir last year provided about one-quarter of the water delivered by the Palmdale district, LaMoreaux said.

Originally, the reservoir had a water surface area of about 104 acres and a shoreline nearly three miles long. But silt accumulated over the years and a state-imposed capacity limit has held the reservoir to a peak of about 200 million gallons and less than 40 acres.