The mammoth Eaton fire has rekindled a long-running debate over whether to consolidate Altadena’s decades-old cluster of water companies.
Three mutual water companies, Las Flores, Lincoln Avenue and Rubio Cañon Land and Water Association serve customers, who are also shareholders in the companies. Pasadena Water and Power services a small portion of Altadena, and the Kinneloa Irrigation District is a special district that operates water service for the Kinneloa Mesa neighborhood.
The diversity in types of water providers is reflected in their varying perspectives on the best way to move forward post-disaster. As the area recovers after the mammoth blaze, differing positions stem from incentive structures and operations that no two companies share.
Whether to consolidate the separate water companies into one water authority for the town is a familiar one in Altadena, where the question has simmered for years. But it has resurfaced in the days after the human and structural toll of the Eaton fire, and as leaders and residents plan a rebuilt town.
“Quite frankly, each individual water district would not be able to absorb the costs that are going to really be encumbered to rebuild their infrastructure system to address really the rebuild efforts that we’re putting into play,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said.
Las Flores, the smallest of the mutual companies, lost two reservoirs in the fire, and 74% of properties in its service area were either damaged or destroyed.
Las Flores experienced low pressure in its Lake Avenue and Cobb pressure zones the night of the fire and when the reservoirs burned and collapsed it led to no water flowing to those two zones.
Portions of Las Flores’ service area remain without clean water pending results of additional testing done on April 25.
“We’re still trying to calculate how long we will be able to continue,” General Manager William Kimberling said. “We’re trying to seek funding through the state and through federal and we’re hoping that comes through so we can fund our operations.”
The topic has come up among the three mutual companies, but Kimberling said right now Las Flores is waiting for things to get back to normal before discussions resume.
Kimberling said it would be beneficial to consolidate because instead of each company being stretched thin to cover all services in its area, a consolidated water company could have specific departments to handle the different types of work water companies cover.
“It would be a good idea to be one and have one water company in Altadena to be stronger, have better resources,” Kimberling said.
Not a silver bullet
However, the larger companies were not as on board with a consolidation plan.
Prior to the fire, Lincoln Avenue provided water to 16,000 residents through 4,500 service connections. Lincoln Avenue’s service area spans four square miles in west Altadena. The fire damaged or destroyed approximately 2,500 properties, about 55% of customers.
One of Lincoln Avenue’s reservoirs suffered damage, but General Manager Jennifer Betancourt Torres said the site supports operation of a surface water treatment plant, so it did not impact the company’s ability to provide water.
Torres said all of its residents currently have potable water service.
Torres said Lincoln Avenue already has partnerships with other water companies in Altadena and is providing water to Las Flores as it repairs its reservoirs.
“Lincoln Avenue has a path forward that is manageable without consolidation,” Torres said.
Rubio Cañon Land and Water Association serves just less than 10,000 customers in the easterly portion of the unincorporated section of Altadena. The company lost four reservoirs, specialist equipment and communications in the fire which destroyed just over 1,100 of Rubio Canon’s 3,150 service connections.
The reservoirs represented a total capacity of about 2.5 million gallons, according to General Manager Lisa Yamashita-Lopez. As of today, all Rubio Cañon customers have clean, potable drinking water.
Yamashita-Lopez described mutual water companies as the bedrock of water in the state, predating many municipalities.
“We were able to rebound quickly because of the fact that we’ve set up the infrastructure hydraulically to move water and isolate different parts of the system so that’s who we were able to come back fairly quickly and re-pressurize the system, even though we lost all of that storage,” Yamashita-Lopez said.
Adan Ortega, executive director of the California Association of Mutual Water Companies, said Lincoln Avenue and Rubio Cañon began to see water pressure affected mid-morning on Jan. 8 as residents evacuated and left hoses on.
“It’s too early to say for certain whether a consolidated system would have fared better,” Ortega said in an email. “Foothill Municipal Water District, which is proposing the consolidation with Las Flores, has only four hours of back-up supplies and they have not established a funding source to expand that to meet retail service needs.”
Kinneloa Irrigation District serves about 600 customers in unincorporated Los Angeles County east of Eaton Canyon between Eaton Canyon and Hastings Ranch, above New York Drive and known as Kinneloa Mesa. General Manager Tom Majich said 40 customers lost their homes in the fire. The district’s equipment did not suffer damage in the fire and customers had water and adequate system pressure the entire time.
Pasadena Water and Power has nearly 4,700 service connections in Altadena and 600 structures in its service area were damaged in the fire. PWP reservoirs and tanks in the northern portion of the service area, which include the southern and eastern portions of Altadena were threatened by the fire.
Ortega said it would be inaccurate to describe consolidation as a silver bullet in solving water issues in California.
Ortega also serves on the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California board, which supplies imported water to the Altadena companies via its member agency, the Foothill Municipal Water District.
Ortega cited other examples of consolidation efforts in Covina and an unincorporated area near Compton.
Ortega said because the customers of mutuals are also shareholders, it would make the integration process subject to the Secretary of State’s Office. Through their shares the customers have a property right to the value of assets the companies own which include facilities, real estate, and water rights.
To consolidate there would have to be an agreement between the companies with approval by a majority of their respective shareholders.
“It’s our job as management and the board of directors to protect those property rights and when you’re rebounding and recovering consolidation doesn’t necessarily contribute to any benefits of that,” said Yamashita-Lopez who is also chair of the Cal Mutuals board of directors.
Barger said in light of the fire’s impact on water systems’ resiliency and potential rising costs associated with the town’s rebuild, she said consolidation of the systems deserves serious consideration.
“It’s going to be driven by whether or not they can not only rebuild but maintain the water system that’s going to be needed,” Barger said.
The county does not have authority over the water companies, but Barger said the county has submitted a cost estimate of what it would take to rebuild the water system to the governor’s office, which was in turn submitted to the federal government for infrastructure funding.
History goes back to Eaton
Author, historian and Altadena resident Michele Zack was a Rubio Cañon customer. She’s been happy with the water and service Rubio Cañon provides and would not want to get roped in with other companies and potentially the city of Pasadena.
Zack said water in Altadena can be traced back, ironically, to Benjamin Eaton whose name had been synonymous with Eaton Canyon and now with the fire that turned Altadena life on its head.
Zack said that in the 1850s Eaton, also a land developer, brought water onto the San Pasqual Rancho for Don Benito Wilson and John Griffith. The 14,000-acre area would later become Pasadena, Altadena and South Pasadena.
Like with other aspects of Altadena’s development, Zack said, its lack of incorporation is the main driver of the way how the town’s water system evolved.
“Water was never municipalized here, instead it developed out of first different farmers getting together to share an irrigation district and then it kind of grew from that,” Zack said.
Kinneloa Irrigation District, as currently constituted, came about through consolidation in the 1950s and 1970s. A special district creates a hyper local government that is able to levee taxes and draft bond measures. Majich said that while the concept of consolidation has been proposed recently, given the district’s geographic isolation from the other independent agencies it may not make sense to include them in any consolidation.
Water companies reported that apart from minimal impacts from the fire, their water sources were not seriously harmed by the fire.
Kinneloa Irrigation District gets its water from groundwater pumps and while it has the right to imported water it has never used it.
Lincoln Avenue has three sources of water: pumped local groundwater, purchased imported water from the Metropolitan Water District and exclusive rights to the local Millard Canyon and El Prieto Canyon surface water.
Rubio Cañon has three groundwater wells that are regulated by the Raymond Basin Management Board. In addition pipeline conveyances in Rubio Canyon also move surface water from the canyon down to the company’s treatment plant. The company also gets water through emergency interconnections and purchased water through Foothill Municipal Water District.
Las Flores’ water comes from the Mount View Well and the remainder is purchased from the Metropolitan Water District via a connection with the Foothill Municipal Water District.
Kinneloa Irrigation District recently approved a five-year budget and completed a five-year rate study. Two months later, the Eaton fire ravaged Altadena and impacted its customer base. Majich said the plans will need to be reviewed to reevaluate capital project priorities.
He does not expect a significant financial impact from fire damage to the system but Majich estimated about a 10% loss in revenue due to the homes that were destroyed and customers who have left the district due to other concerns related to the fire’s impact.
However, Majich said swings in revenue can happen in a given year without fire or other disasters.
“We could experience that just if it rains a lot and people don’t water their lawns,” Majich said. “It’s disappointing but manageable.”
Ortega said 2016 legislation allowed the mutual water companies to establish a joint powers risk insurance authority, which provides the Altadena companies insurance coverage. Ortega said that step proved important as it has become harder and harder for small water systems to find fire insurance.
“These mutuals have already filed their claims and have done their preliminary damage assessment so that they could have funding to begin their recovery,” Ortega said.
Looking ahead, the water companies said they’d be able to accommodate serving a rebuilt Altadena moving forward. Yamashita-Lopez said Rubio Cañon invests $1 million a year on capital improvements and adding any new capacity is done annually, regardless of a disaster or not.
As each property is rebuilt, Torres said, Lincoln Avenue will review construction plans to see if any changes are needed.
“For instance, if an apartment building or large development were to be proposed, we’d evaluate the flow requirements and review the size of the surrounding water mains,” Torres said in an email.
She said one positive of rebuilding is the possibility that new plumbing and water efficient fixtures could result in a reduction of water usage.
In the meantime, Barger said she’s “actively engaged” with the county’s Public Work’s Department, which is which is convening regular meetings with the water agencies to understand their systems, needs, and constraints.
Ultimately though, Barger said a lesson she has taken from the Eaton fire is that a “fire season” no longer exists. It’s year around.
“We must build and maintain infrastructure with this new reality in mind,” Barger said.