Pressure Is On for Residents Living Above Pipelines

Roberta Rose’s mobile home is immaculate, and she’s itching to show it off.

See the tangelo tree, heavy with fragrant orange fruit. See the periwinkle forget-me-nots spilling over a cinder-block wall. See the doilies on the shiny coffee table.

What you can’t see is what officials view as a liquid-filled time bomb beneath Rose’s home--a massive, high-pressure water main that should never sit under structures.

“That’s my bedroom, my porch,” said the 76-year-old widow, pointing. “If it blows, my bedroom goes.”

Like eight neighboring families in Susana Woods Mobile Home Park, Rose and her cozy coach are perched in peril.

Their mobile homes, sheds, porches and driveways were illegally erected on a 35-foot-wide strip of land south of Katherine Road--an easement belonging to Calleguas Municipal Water District, where structures are strictly forbidden.

It’s hard to say how the homes came to be built on the land, but the effect on the homeowners is nevertheless devastating: Literally below their feet sit two high-pressure pipelines that carry millions of gallons of water to Ventura County residents each year.

Under the strain of an earthquake or a massive power outage, those water mains could blow sky-high, spurting 45-foot geysers into the air, tossing cars around like toys and possibly hurting or killing anyone above them.

That possibility is among the reasons that the water district gained easement rights to the land in the 1970s--before any of the coaches were erected.

But no one mentioned any easement, Rose and her neighbors say, when they plunked down tens of thousands of dollars for their homes in this mobile home park in Simi Valley’s east end. No one told them that the rocky dirt beneath their foundations was a development no-man’s land.

“We knew the easement was back there somewhere, but we didn’t know we were on top of it,” said Frank Sexton, who has lived above the easement for nearly 22 years with his wife, Lois.

“When we first moved into the park, we just thought it was a greenbelt,” Lois Sexton added.

Far from it. The land is actually supposed to be the buffer between families and potential disaster.

“You can’t go under the assumption that because nothing [bad] has ever happened, nothing will happen,” Calleguas General Manager Don Kendall said. “I wouldn’t want to have my family sitting out there--it’s not safe.”

Although water main breaks are not common, they do occur on occasion with fearsome force. Witness a March burst under Madera Road that sent chunks of asphalt into the air and left a gaping, 30-by-12-foot sinkhole--but did not injure anyone.

Despite the potential danger, the nine families--who live in lots 32, 33, 57, 58, 98, 99, 120, 121 and 122 of the 139-unit park--feel powerless to move their homes out of harm’s way. They have put down roots, planted gardens, decorated and added earthquake braces to their homes. And they say they are too poor to relocate their homes to safety without financial assistance.

Twice within the last year--most recently on Nov. 21--Ventura County Superior Court Judge Ken W. Riley has ordered the park’s owners--Susana Woods Associates, Rosemary Lamont-Williams and Carole Bird Corp.--to pay for relocating the homes.

Riley’s first order--a preliminary injunction--gave the mobile home park owners from last March to Oct. 20 to move the homes.

October came and went without any relocation occurring.

The more recent permanent injunction said the owners “are required to and shall remove all encroachments from and upon the Calleguas easement.” It further stated that the owners should pay all moving costs plus Calleguas’ legal fees after Oct. 20.

But still the coaches sit. And the residents wait.

They wait to see if the legal battles--which they are not party to--will continue. They wait for the possibility that an appeal will be filed. Or for the mobile home park owners to cough up the cash to pack up their boxes and relocate them. Or for frustrated Calleguas officials to take matters into their own hands.

“Either they do it or we do it, and I bill them for it,” said Thomas P. Anderle, Calleguas’ lawyer.

Asked whether the property owners planned to appeal the judge’s order, Norma Johnson, an off-site property manager working for Walnut-based Bessire & Casenhiser, would only say, “It’s been a long, hard legal battle, and we are still considering our options.”

She deferred all other questions to attorneys, but lawyers for the mobile home park’s owners--who employ Johnson’s company--did not return repeated calls to discuss the Susana Woods situation.

Anderle said it is up to the owners to meet the judge’s order.

“Calleguas Municipal Water District has bent over backwards to work with Susana Woods to get these mobile homes out of here,” he said. “There have been numerous promises and agreements for the mobile homes to be taken out of the easement. None of those promises have been kept.”

In court documents filed in opposition to the preliminary injunction, lawyers for the mobile home park owners explain some of the problems involved in moving the homes.

“The mobile homes and other buildings in question have been situated over the subject easement in excess of 17 years,” lawyers wrote last March. “They have remained in their present location during all of these years (as well as the Northridge earthquake) without incident. The remedy sought by the plaintiff in this case (the forced movement of several residences) is extreme. . . . It will be extremely difficult, expensive and time-consuming (taking approximately nine months) to move the mobile homes off of the plaintiff’s easement. In some cases (due to a lack of space) it may be impossible.”

The history of the land above the pipelines is murky.

The lines--one 51 inches in diameter, the other 78 inches--have traversed the east end of Simi Valley for at least three decades, said Kendall. The district secured exclusive rights to the land in 1975, before building began on it. Those easement rights were meant to protect public safety around the water pipes and to facilitate repairs of the water pipes should an accident occur.

The first of the nine families living on the easement moved in almost 22 years ago. They say no one told them about the easement. It is difficult to know whether the park owners realized they were building on it illegally, Calleguas lawyer Anderle said.

“What happens is sometimes deliberately, sometimes carelessly, sometimes negligently, people end up putting a structure on top of the easement,” he said.

Elsewhere along Calleguas’ 270 miles of pipelines, people have put a shed or a fence in the easement--but have moved them when asked. Regardless, there are no squatters’ rights on easements, he said.

Calleguas did not realize that any homes sat on the off-limits land until employees did some routine maintenance in Simi Valley’s east end in March 1996. They spied at least three buildings on the easement and sent out surveyors to check for others.

Almost immediately, water district officials said they feared the worst and asked the property owners to move the homes quickly.

Residents say Calleguas’ surveyors were the first to notify them of their peril.

Since then they’ve felt stress and anticipation. They have formed an easement action committee to have their needs heard in the legal fights. They worry for their safety, their futures and the resale values of their coaches.

“Every time we get a little tremble, we’re frightened people,” Rose said. “We’ve already seen film that shows the break on Madera. Not one of us could save ourselves if that happened. Not the children. Not the moms and pops.”

Some of them want their homes bought out so they recoup their investment and move on. Others just want their homes relocated. All are antsy for something concrete to happen, so their lives will no longer be on hold.

“All we really want is to have our house moved and live life like we did before,” said Molly Resnick, who has lived above a pipeline with her husband, Herman, for 17 years. “I used to enjoy living in this park.”