Latest water main break: South Los Angeles
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power crews are scrambling to fix the latest water main break, this time a South Los Angeles failure that has left a handful of residents without running water.
The break in a six-inch cast-iron pipe occurred at 12:39 a.m. at 115th Street and Denver Avenue, said Kim Hughes, a DWP spokeswoman. Workers shut off water, affecting five residential customers, though it’s unclear if they are single-family homes or multi-family dwellings, she said.
Crews hope to have water restored shortly.
“Our team is opening up the area and getting to the pipe and making repairs,” she said. “They’re digging down and seeing what they’ve got.”
Los Angeles has seen an increase in water main breaks in recent weeks, with double the number last month compared to the year before. Officials are investigating the cause, but some suspect that recent water rationing limiting lawn watering to certain days may be stressing the aging pipes.
-- Seema Mehta
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EDITOR'S PICKS:
I always wanted a backyard swimming pool but not this way.
Posted by: Rick | October 09, 2009 at 10:39 AM
Has there been any discussion of the possibility that the subterranean ground in certain areas of the Central LA/OC Basin may be shifting and sinking due to over pumping of local groundwater and drought conditions? I believe there is a specific geologic term for this phenomena which escapes me at the moment. This phenomena is occurring in the Central Valley and causing substantial sinking of the valley floor in some places, and even sinkholes, but those places are not typically layered with pipelines like LA. A subterranean collapse of earth is not always visible from the surface but it might stress water main joints leading to breaks and further collapse. Just a thought.
Posted by: John Leddy | October 09, 2009 at 11:26 AM