DWP Reservoir Project Linked to Proposed Water Rate Increases

Crews with the Department of Water and Power have spent the last year preparing a 43-acre site for a $230 million project that will allow the Silver Lake and Ivanhoe reservoirs to close per a federal mandate.

Courtesy of LADWP

Utility officials hope that by showing and explaining capital projects like this one that it will ease the process of approving higher water and power rates.

The site of the Headworks Spreading Ground is just off of Forest Lawn Drive between Griffith Park and the Ventura (134) Freeway. It’s on this spot that the DWP plans to build two buried concrete reservoirs with the capacity to hold 110 million gallons of water. Along with a new pipeline, the East and West reservoirs at Headworks will replace the open-air reservoirs of Silver Lake and Ivanhoe, which hold a total of 750 million gallons of water.

Angelenos use an average of 600 million gallons of water every day. In Los Angeles, that water is kept in open-air reservoirs after it has been treated. However, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now requires those spaces to be covered or taken off line in order to prevent contamination from chemicals, animals and debris.

The concrete structures will be a total of 40 feet in height, rising 2 to 3 feet above the roadway. Dirt from the Forest Lawn cemetery will be used to cover the structures, which will then be landscaped and outfitted with hiking trails and gardens.

A 4-megawatt hydroelectric power plant will also be built at Headworks to capture energy generated by the water as it flows down from North Hollywood. The power side of the Department of Water and Power is expected to buy that energy. The $25 million plant will pay for itself in 10 years, according to DWP representatives.

Courtesy of LADWP

Tractors began preparing the land last November. The East Reservoir is slated to open in November 2014, when Ivanhoe is required by law to be taken out of service.

The West Reservoir and power plant are expected to be operational by 2017.

At that point, water will remain in the Silver Lake and Ivanhoe reservoirs, although it was no longer be used as drinking water.

In order to fund these mandates from the state and federal governments, the Department of Water and Power’s leadership is looking to the Los Angeles City Council to approve a 15.3 percent increase in water rates and 16.8 percent jump in power rates. Those increases would be spread out over a three-year period.

When DWP first announced the plan in June, officials had hoped to have the rate increases enacted by Nov. 1. That deadline has come and gone, and city officials have said no increase will take effect until the Office of Public Accountability has an executive director, which is expected to happen after the first of the year.

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