Two more water main breaks: Hollywood and the Hollywood Hills [Updated]

Two more water main breaks sent water flooding into Los Angeles streets, the latest in a string of pipeline failures bedeviling the city’s Department of Water and Power.

Crews are working to shore up an 8-inch pipe near Paramount Studios that broke at 4:20 a.m., according to the DWP. The break, on Van Ness Avenue between Lemon Grove and Melrose avenues, has left four homes without water.

The Paramount lot is still accessible, but southbound traffic on Van Ness is being diverted onto Lemon Grove and Wilton Place. [Updated at 9:50 a.m.: Traffic is no longer being diverted.]

The other break occurred Thursday night in a 6-inch pipe in the Hollywood Hills. Crews have finished repair work on Willow Glen Road, and no residents lost water.

Los Angeles has seen an increase in water main breaks in recent weeks, with double the number last month compared with the previous year. Officials are investigating the cause, but some suspect that recent rationing limiting lawn watering to certain days may be stressing the aging pipes.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been called in to examine whether tectonic activity is playing a role.

-- Seema Mehta

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Comments

[jsa26]

I wonder how many lawns could have been watered with what went down storm drains due to these broken mains.

Come on DWP, you make us conserve, while raising rates, how about responsible stewardship of the resources you control

[Gaucho420]

The LADWP is a terrible agency. From the we could care less customer service, to the website that often is inaccessible to its customers and let's not forget the constant over billing if you move apartments (you move in August, tell them about it and still get a bill for September...has happened to me every single time I'm moved, four times this decade...this cannot be coicidence)...this is an completly inept agency, that is drunk with power and doesn't listen to regulators, customers or anyone else.

They are the very definition of bureaucracy and they simply stink.

[sbsunluvr]

I agree with the above comments about the LADWP. I have been waiting over a year for them to fix a water meter concrete box in front of my driveway. The concrete is broken and the metal cover often falls in on the pipe and meter. It is a large water pipe break waiting to happen but despite multiple pleas on my part they have done nothing. How can public utility not be required to maintain proper infrastructure? Ridiculous

[John Williams]

Water-main breaks might somehow be because of water hammer, if, recently, something has been happening to synchronize water use such as toilet flushing, laundering, lawn water turnoffs, shower usage, etc.