Reports Detailed Problems in Tanks

Westminster city officials have known for at least six years that their aging pair of water tanks needed costly repairs to keep them safe, records show.

Besides needing to retrofit their 5-million-gallon reservoirs against earthquake damage, repairs have been needed since at least 1992 for more than a dozen wells, upgrades that would have cost roughly $20 million.

An engineering report issued that year found that the Hefley Street tank, which ruptured Monday in a tidal wave that left at least 30 people homeless and injured six, had developed cracks and started to leak, according to the city’s former mayor and its former city manager. By 1995, both tanks had to be lined with plastic, according to then-Mayor Charles V. Smith, who is now on the Board of Supervisors.

“They were so deficient,” he said Monday of the massive, dome-shaped reservoirs. “Everybody knew it.”

In 1996, then-City Manager Bill Smith issued three memos that included warnings of possible dangers ahead to the aging water system.

“[W]e are anticipating very serious problems . . . over the next decade,” Smith wrote in an April 1996 memo to the City Council. “These problems result from age, from deferred maintenance, and from simple wear and tear.”

The following month, he sent a memo to the city’s financial review committee, urging them to retrofit the storage tanks.

“We know the existing reservoirs predate current earthquake standards. Therefore, we need to earthquake-proof our reservoirs.”

But city officials Monday denied that the city had ignored recommendations to fix the aging system. In fact, they said they spent $10.2 million over the past six years to improve the water system. None of the money, however, went to retrofitting the tanks.

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“There was no indication that there was anything wrong with these tanks or a need to repair them,” Assistant City Atty. Kim Barlow said. She said she recalled reading several of the water reports and believed those referred to assessing the need for retrofitting, not necessarily to make the repairs.

Officials Monday said they were unable to find the 1992 engineering report in their files. Bill Smith referred to that very study in a 1996 memo to council members.

“Since 1992, the city has been aware that the water utility needs millions of dollars in retrofit and capital improvements,” Bill Smith wrote. “In addition, the system needs an additional $1 million a year in annual replacement and repair costs.”

City Manager Don Vestal, who was the public works director from 1991 until April, said he did not recall the details of Smith’s memos.

“We had no warning and no reason to believe one of the tanks might fail,” he said.

Plans to upgrade the city’s entire water system first took shape three years ago, when council members discussed privatization or raising residents’ water bills by about 25% to cover the repairs themselves.

In 1996, they had finally agreed to a contract with California-American Water Co. of Chula Vista, which would give the city $151 million in cash payments over 40 years, as well as provide $6.5 million up front for infrastructure improvements.

But the plan was scrapped after last year’s election, largely at the urging of Councilman Frank Fry Jr., who opposed privatization.

Fry, now the mayor, could not be reached for comment Monday night.

“They basically went right back to their old ways--doing nothing,” former Mayor Smith said. “And now I just don’t see how they’ll ever recover from this.”

City officials said they plan to meet with residents of the Hefley Street townhouse complex to discuss insurance concerns as well as the cause of the rupture.