Eric has been doing a story this morning about how a neighbourhood burned by the Yorba Linda fire apparently ran out of water pressure during the fires.
While I feel sorry for the people whose houses were burned, I can't help but feel it's a somewhat unfair criticism. Throughout California, when buildings are built in a neighbourhood, a certain amount of water has to be provided for by the developer and as far as i have seen (I work as a groundwater geologist) the requirements are usually listed as: a supply of water of x gallons per minute must be able to be supplied for a period of y hours. For the City of Anaheim, in a residential area the amount of water that must be supplied is 1500gpm for 2 hours. That's it. If they had that much water supplied before it ran out, it's unfortunate but not suprising.
In my opinion it would be completely impossible to guarantee enough water for all the areas being burned over the weekend. This is especially true given that California's water supply situation is awful and getting worse because nobody is ready to accept that we should be paying A LOT more for our water supply - we live in a desert, and yet we want lush gardens everywhere. We've had yet another drought year this year, and all the reservoirs are low and so supplying large volumes of water is just not possible.
I will grant that if they had less water supply than they were required to Yorba Linda should have fixed the problem. I would not be suprised however if the water supply was adequate when the developer built up the area, and now with the drought, the water supply infracstucture is no longer sufficient.
I just think it's really easy to critisize the water district, but they probably supplied far more than already than was required by law, the developers should be required to build a better infrastructure that would last for a longer period, and it just isn't feasible that we can supply a huge volume of water everywhere when we live in a desert unless everybody is willing to pay far more.
Oh Goodness... I don't want to give my E Mail addresses or phone number on this site just due to the nature of some of the "beasts" we come across here and their negative threatening mannerisms!
Hmmmm....You know where I work (or so I have gathered.........I deal in the admissions region. Ask for me by name (AKA: Virginia/Ginnie)
Is that do-able?????? I will wait for your answer.
how horrible it is that the city hadn't been checking on things like the main water pump regularly.[QUOTE]
I believe it would be the responsibility of the YL WATER DISTRICT to do that; as I noted, they are responsible for water distribution for most of YL.
[QUOTE]Are they mentioning anything yet on their show about the law suit by the residents there and the other water issues of the past?
I do not listen to the show; my sister and a good friend do. And, on a lighter note - my brother knows every station in California that broadcasts Limbaugh and when they broadcast; that makes long-distance drives very annoying.
John and Ken were talking about it all yesterday too. I listen to them avidly on my way home from work. They were mentioning yesterday how horrible it is that the city hadn't been checking on things like the main water pump regularly.
Are they mentioning anything yet on their show about the law suit by the residents there and the other water issues of the past?
P.S., Ginnie, Brea's City Council meeting for tonight has been cancelled until December 2nd; I think due to lack of a quorum.
One of the items was the continuation of a public hearing to decide if more development should be done in the Carbon Canyon area; while the Planning Commission approved it, that was appealed to the CC (by a former Council member, by the way) hence the public hearing (which has been going on for 2 months or so, I think (4 meetings? maybe more).
Personally, I think those appealing the Commission's approval got more support against development based on this weekend's events.
Ginnie, I found out Ken and John (John and Ken?) on KFI have been looking into this. Also, several residents are planning to attend tonight's YL City Council meeting.
City Council meetings are "streamed" live via their website (according to information there).
I went back to the YLWD website and found a statement that was issued yesterday; it addressed the water issue in the Hidden Hills area (one of those with most damage).
You may want to check that out, but it did note that water has to be pumped "up[hill]" even in usual times that's going to be a problem!
I just remembered something re: "turning down" - a few months ago, water distribution was, I believe, somewhat lowered because maintenance was being done to upgrade the Deemer Plant (which may be part of YLWD).
What you were told looks like a mix of various situations that all may have occurred, but not in the same time frame. Those would be the subsidence with overwatering allegations lawsuits(several years ago; at least 4 years ago), the advice against overwatering (periodically), water rationing/distribution restriction during the plant maintenance (few months ago).
