Sierra Madre At The Water's Edge

Eau down the flue

Tomorrow is the day we start importing water from Arcadia. The reason we need to do this is obvious, we no longer have the water resources necessary to supply the needs of the people of Sierra Madre. Well #4 is completely shut down, and Well #5 has only a relative few feet of water left. Meaning it has a couple of weeks to go before it is shut down. Wells #3 and #6 continue to be in fairly good shape, but by themselves do not produce enough water to supply the needs of this city adequately. We are now dependent on the good will (or avarice) of others for our continued survival as a city.

Water being pumped into Sierra Madre from Arcadia will be coming in through much of the same infrastructure associated with Well # 6. What this means is that while Arcadia is sending some of their water our way, our Well #6 will need to be shut down. Arcadia's water, like ours, is pumped at night in order to take advantage of the lower Edison rates. Meaning that any pumping from Well #6 will now have to be done during the day, and at a much higher cost.

And by the way, the Metropolitan Water District hook up so many are putting stock in will not be finished until sometime in August. Better buckle yourself in. Oh, and be very nice to anyone you meet from Arcadia.

Southern California Edison, in one of the most cynical and mean-spirited moves that I have ever seen from a local corporate entity, has chosen this sad moment to raise their rates to our water enterprise by over 22%. This is quite a shocking thing for them to do. If I was the Mayor of this city I would have thrown their representative out of Council Chambers Tuesday night. Just so Edison might understand how we feel.

Instead our Edison babysitter, Ben Wong, was there all Tuesday evening, and could be seen snickering with the staff. And why should any of them care? They don't live here.

By the way, if you should want to get hold of Ben and discuss the corporate policies of the company he works for, you can reach him at 1-323-720-5292. His e-mail address is Ben.Wong@sce.com. The City apparently has him on speed dial. Obviously Ben is quite comfortable with the folks downtown who are not representing our interests very well. Otherwise why would Edison have seen this as an opportunity to rather ruthlessly exploit our problems in the way that they have?

If you ever want to have a very interesting conversation, the next time you see some of the guys from the Water Enterprise working to repair one of our numerous busted water mains, stop by and talk with them. These guys work hard, are putting in long hours, and are more than willing to talk about what an utter disaster this City's water infrastructure is. There was one leak on Grove Street last week from a pipe that, until that moment, was unknown to the City. It had been put in place 80 or so years ago, had later apparently been partially sealed off, and was now serving no real apparent purpose. Except, of course, until it started leaking. Then it became a problem.

Sierra Madre, which is carrying $19 million dollars in bad water bond debt from the Bart Doyle era, and sends banks on the east coast just under a million dollars yearly because of it, has no funds available to repair anything, and has now been reduced to chasing leaks when ever they show up. It is all that this city is currently capable of doing. That and watching our too shallow wells run dry. Oh, and like the proverbial dumb relative, begging other towns to bail us out.

Here is a thought. Arcadia, which draws its water from the same resources that we do, is now shipping us water, and at a very reasonable rate. Why is it that they have water to spare, while we are rapidly running out? The answer, of course, is infrastructure. Their wells are adequate to the demands of life here in the semi-arid San Gabriel Valley, whereas ours are far too shallow. The argument you get from certain City Hall apologists is that our wells are above bedrock too difficult to drill through. But didn't Arcadia deal with that problem? All those other cities in this valley, all of whom exist next to the same foothills that we do, are they running out of water? No, they are not. Only Sierra Madre.

The problem is our Water Department has been run into the ground by incompetent and financially irresponsible people, and we are now looking up a long barrel at some pretty dire circumstances. If this City runs out of water, and it hits the Eyewitless News stations in the big time way I suspect it would, our property values are shot. Nobody in their right mind would want to buy here. There are real consequences to this, far worse than watching your lawn burn up.

Watching 80% of the City Council debate for a full hour Tuesday evening about how many members the absurdly unimportant EENER Commission should have, followed later by an equally fatuous conversation about planting drought resistant vegetation at City Hall, was a sobering experience. Throw in the conversation Johnny Junket conducted about plane trips to Washington DC, and the sense of disconnect becomes complete. There is a distinct possibility that the elected leadership running this City is not up to the challenges they're facing. It could be that they are really little more than fools, and we are in far more trouble than most people know.

Ask yourself this, do you see Nancy Walsh coming up with any solutions? Josh Moran? John Harabedian? Beyond raising our water rates again? Along with every other tax and fee under their purview? I don't. We might not have the leadership necessary to get us through this.

I was on a fairly extended e-mail conversation about some of these topics yesterday, and I thought I'd post a few of the observations made there.

"Which brings me to another concern which I raised at a recent council meeting but which I understand has not yet been addressed:  a building moratorium in Sierra Madre.  If water waste is now at such a critical level in Sierra Madre that council members have devised and implemented draconian water conservation measures, which can include ultimate seizure of personal real property, THEN any new building in town MUST be suspended indefinitely.  You cannot expect the residents to adhere to such new measures when the city continues to be the biggest waster of water (did I hear correctly?  4 MILLION gallons of water a year lost to broken and leaking pipes throughout town?!!) and council will not take the next most necessary and logical step to ensure our water supply:  implement an immediate building moratorium on all new development in Sierra Madre until the water crisis has been averted/resolved.  I question the motivations of a council that will not address this elephant in the room."