DWP Plants to Be a Decade Late

With a deadline just a week away, Los Angeles water officials said Tuesday they will be a decade late in completing a string of costly filtration plants the state has mandated to purify drinking water exposed to the elements in Encino, Hollywood and Stone Canyon reservoirs.

And in their first estimate of the effect on rates, Department of Water and Power officials said the three filtration plants, costing roughly $150 million apiece, could raise the average customer’s water bill by $3.20 per month for 10 years, a rate increase of about 12%.

DWP officials said the last of the three plants may not be finished until 2003, despite the state deadline of this June 29 to have the plants in service. They have applied to the state Department of Health Services for a deadline extension and for a waiver of a requirement that in the meantime the department warn its customers that open reservoirs pose risks of waterborne diseases.

State and federal regulations require filtration of water from large water storage lakes such as the three DWP reservoirs.