Sewer Use Not Free for La Crescenta, Tujunga

Contrary to your article by free-lance writer Gloria Greco (Valley Commentary, June 18) accusing La Crescenta of dumping unlimited free quantities of waste water into the L.A. sewers, La Crescenta has its own sewer system, governed by the Crescenta Valley County Water District.

We have a twofold purpose: supply top-quality potable water to every dwelling unit and remove the waste water via sewers. For this service each dwelling unit is charged a sewer fee of $26 per month.

Twenty dollars of this fee is paid to the city of Glendale to handle all of La Crescenta’s waste water on its trip to its final destination, the Hyperion plant.

Glendale is billed for its share of the capital improvement costs for the Hyperion system at least twice a year. An invoice to the water district from Glendale shows a total of almost $4.5 million for the period of June, 1994, to December, 1994. Because Crescenta Valley County Water District has a percentage of the main discharge line to the Hyperion plant, it was billed $427,318 for a six-month period.

The Crescenta Valley County Water District has paid more than $7 million for capital improvements to the Hyperion plant since these improvements started.

Our 1995-96 budget sets aside an additional $1.5 million to finance more improvement at the Hyperion plant.

Such a free ride!

JERRY E. LANE

La Crescenta

Lane is a director of the Crescenta Valley County Water District. *

Gloria Greco may well be correct in her claim that the city of Los Angeles is substantially underpaid for processing the waste of other cities. But she is entirely wrong when she lists La Crescenta among the “areas that all or partly lack sewer systems.”

While there may have been some septic tanks in the so-called “Glendale annex” in the past, that defect was cured 10 or more years ago.

CAROL MANKIEWICZ

La Crescenta

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The last time I drove Foothill Boulevard past Lowell Avenue into Tujunga, I swear I saw a blue “City of Los Angeles” sign. Yes, some of those nasty “outsiders” dumping their cesspool waste into L.A.’s sewers actually live in Los Angeles!

Just in the East Valley, almost all of Tujunga (part of Los Angeles, much to their residents’ chagrin, for about 60 years), Sunland and parts of Sun Valley, Sylmar and Lake View Terrace, are served by cesspools. (Although I now live just outside the city limits, I still own two properties within L.A. that are served by cesspools.)

While Gloria Greco may have a valid point about outside cities’ using services at the Hyperion Treatment Plant at L.A. taxpayers’ expense, increasing charges to private haulers would result in double taxation to L.A. residents who still do not have sewer hookups.

L.A. property owners who have septic tanks pay property taxes too! Our tax dollars have gone to build the Hyperion plant.

To increase the charge to haulers would almost quadruple the average fee for emptying a cesspool (from $80 to $300, according to the company that just pumped one of my L.A. homes). Since I have a septic tank and two cesspools at that home, it would have cost me $900 to empty them! In effect, I would be paying twice for building the Hyperion plant.

Perhaps it is better for the city of Los Angeles to bear the brunt of the cost to treat cesspool waste than face the other extreme--illegal dumping of bio-hazardous cesspool waste by people who could not afford the exorbitant rates, or by unscrupulous haulers trying to cut costs.

LEWIS S. SNOW

La Crescenta

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The cartoon that accompanied “Sewage Treatment Rates Unfair to LA Users” seeks to skewer cities exploiting Los Angeles’ free septic-tank dumping policy by showing a sewage-pumping truck from neighboring cities being welcomed to Los Angeles.

On the side of the truck is the following list: Malibu, La Crescenta, Tujunga, Sierra Madre, and La Canada-Flintridge.

Contrary to what the list implies, Tujunga is part of the city of Los Angeles, and has been so since 1932.

KIRK WEISS

Tujunga