Intolerable Bungling

Luck. That’s all that prevented swimmers at the Cleveland High School pool from suffering serious electrical shocks after the facility’s grounding system failed during a December power surge. Dumb luck. Meanwhile, the $3-million pool remains closed and unused on this, the first holiday weekend of what promises to be another long, hot San Fernando Valley summer. Instead of hosting kids and recreational swimmers this weekend, the pool sits empty as a costly testament to intolerable bureaucratic bungling.

Everyone involved in the pool’s construction admits mistakes were made. And everyone agrees on who’s to blame: someone else. Amid the finger-pointing it remains clear that the pool was not properly inspected during construction and that every agency with a hand in its construction followed the letter rather than the spirit of their obligation to the public.

The problems stem from the way steel reinforcement bars were installed. In traditional installations, the bare reinforcement bars are tied together at their junctions, creating a closed electrical circuit. The grid controls the flow of electricity in case of power surge and prevents current from escaping into the water. But at Cleveland, the grounding system included bars coated in vinyl, a precaution designers thought would minimize rust corrosion. Instead, the vinyl coating prevented proper bonding between the bars, which created an open circuit. The result: Swimmers reported feeling mild jolts of electricity.

Even the smallest children understand that electricity and water don’t mix. Neither, it seems, do bureaucracy and responsibility. And in this case, not just one but three of the most impenetrable bureaucracies imaginable: the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Unified School District and the state of California. Plans for the project got underway in 1986, a year before a pool in Westwood opened with a similar design. It, too, has since been closed. Work began in 1991 but construction was delayed by excavation problems. A day before its official opening in 1994, the pool was heavily damaged by the Northridge earthquake and needed another year of repair work.

Because the project was built on school property, it fell under the jurisdiction of the state. It was not inspected by the city’s Department of Building and Safety. But because the pool was paid for by the city, the state had no obligation to inspect. So the only inspector on the job was brought in from the Bureau of Contract Administration, a city agency that provides inspectors to make sure plans are followed. But the contractor on the project complained that the inspector was often away. Plus, simply ensuring that the plans got followed wasn’t enough because in this case the plans themselves were the problem--an admission the city now makes freely.

At least one city employee insists that the city knew the grounding system was faulty because he pointed it out. Bob England, the chief electrical inspector for the Department of Building and Safety, says he told the on-site inspector that the grounding system did not meet national code requirements. He says he was ignored.

Let us hope that as the city prepares to spend another $1 million to fix the problems at the Cleveland pool--and yet another $1 million on the Westwood pool--comments from knowledgeable inspectors are not ignored simply because they have no official jurisdiction. The city owes it to taxpayers, but most of all to the swimmers who will someday use the pool, to do the job right this time. Next time, luck just might run out.