Our region and those from all around came together to provide support through the incredible losses of the recent wildfires. We will be living with this for many years through the recovery and rebuilding process. Our neighboring water companies, Rubio Cañon Land & Water Association and Lincoln Avenue Water Company, sustained severe losses including their ability to serve water to the homes in their service areas. 

CVWD activated its Emergency Operations Center to ensure adequate water supply and pressure for firefighting efforts; to monitor water quality for safe consumption and to provide aid to others once our ability to fulfill our mission had stabilized. I would like to highlight gratitude for our System Operations team. Their day-to-day responsibility is to treat water, test it according to the nation’s strictest standards and pump the water throughout the distribution system and into your homes. 

Whenever there are high wind advisories or one of Southern California Edison’s public safety power shutoffs, the System Operations team leads the mobilization effort to ensure everything possible has been done to prepare for such events. This effort includes: deploying portable generators to the sites that pump water through the system; checking for brush clearance around sites such as reservoirs and pump stations; fill all of the 17 reservoirs to ensure water supply and pressure in case our water sources are cut off; checking our emergency water interconnections with the City of Glendale, La Cañada Irrigation District and LADWP; reviewing alternate pumping plans in case infrastructure is lost; and monitoring water quality. During our past event, with no power, there was no ability to monitor the system through technology. Consequently the team implemented a 24-hour rotation schedule to refill diesel for portable generators and take manual reads of reservoir levels and water quality. 

Thank you to the community as well. CVWD maintains a relatively significant amount of water storage. Our combined 17 million gallons of reservoir capacity can serve water for five to seven days under typical conditions and seven/11 days under emergency restrictions. The community collectively responded to our notice to restrict water to essential use only, and the response was immediate and significant. Thank you very much for this.

It was only last October that the District purchased two mobile dip tanks for firefighting helicopters to drastically augment firefighting capabilities. It’s unfortunate these fires occurred, but the new dip tanks deployed for the fires, and we’re glad to have contributed to the fight in this way. We are looking to do what we can for our customers and our neighbors up and down the state as the sponsor of Senate Bill 90, which was introduced to the State Legislature for consideration last week to provide funding for these tanks for other water agencies. We are all in this together after all.

Thank you as always for taking the time to read and for continuing the dialogue.

James Lee, General Manager
CVWD