Coalition to Fight Water Tank Project Over Effects on Traffic, Roads

ENCINO — Neighbors of Encino Reservoir have formed a coalition with a twofold purpose: to block the construction of a proposed $60-million water tank and filtration plant in their backyard or at least to mitigate the effects of having thousands of truckloads of cement traverse their secluded hillside retreat.

By 2003, the city Department of Water and Power is mandated by federal and state regulations to build a water tank and filtration plant next to the reservoir that sits atop this quiet neighborhood of winding, tree-lined streets.

The project calls for a tank roughly the size of the Great Western Forum and a two-story filtration plant. Construction is expected to cause major disruptions in the surrounding residential area, including the possible removal of trees and widening of streets through neighborhoods of pricey homes to accommodate the trucks that will need to make about 2,000 round trips, hauling cement to the site. DWP officials say routes being considered include White Oak, Encino, Louise and Hayvenhurst avenues south of Ventura Boulevard.

DWP officials met with area residents Tuesday night to update them on the project, which has cost $5 million to date and is expected to take four years to complete, and to tell them that the department would soon begin conducting studies for an environmental impact report on the project. Water from Encino Reservoir is a back-up supply for emergencies, peak usage time or drought situations.

Eight years ago, the federal Environmental Protection Agency ruled that waste from wildlife roaming the hillsides around open reservoirs might contaminate rainwater runoff. The state Department of Health Services responded by requiring water districts either to divert runoff into storm drains, cover the reservoirs or filter the water.

Initially the DWP proposed to cap the city reservoirs, but the plan met with intense opposition from residents and members of the City Council who wanted to keep them open. After six years of mediation with DWP officials to consider different project options, reservoir neighbors banded together to form the Encino Hillside Coalition in an effort to reduce the impact of the construction on the area.

The situation has made unwitting bedfellows of the property owners and DWP officials, both of whom would prefer that the project not be built, although both groups acknowledge the state and federal regulations mandating the project.

Alana Knaster, president of Calabasas-based Mediation Institute, estimated that the DWP has spent $110,000 in mediation fees since talks began with Encino property owners six years ago. The DWP is expected to spend another $110,000 by the time the environmental impact report is finished, in about nine months, she said.

“It’s going to be hell,” said Itmar Bernstein, who for the last 10 years has lived with his wife, Judith, on Adlon Place, 120 feet from the proposed water tank. “I’m worried about the construction and the situation afterward.”

The 15-million-gallon water tank is proposed to be built at the end of Adlon Place. The filtration plant would be constructed 300 yards to the west, said Bob Yoshimura, director of the DWP’s water supply division.

Area residents are less concerned about the size of the project than about the construction traffic it will generate through their neighborhoods.

“The big problem will be that the arteries to get in and out of here are going to be an absolute disaster,” said Jim Brust, a retired engineer who helped form the Encino Hillside Coalition.

Already the area suffers from heavy morning traffic from West Valley commuters bypassing the Ventura/San Diego freeway interchange by driving through the Encino Reservoir neighborhood. Adding hundreds of construction trucks will only exacerbate an already bad traffic problem, Brust said.

DWP officials are discussing ways to split truck trips on several routes or to bring some of the building materials in by helicopter.

For some residents, Tuesday’s meeting was the first they learned of the scale of the project. Homeowners suggested everything from lawsuits to personal under-the-sink filters to stop the project from happening.

But Yoshimura said he’s heard it all before.

The DWP conducted legal research, studied the technology, applied for exemptions and appealed to state and local politicians to stop the project, but to no avail, Yoshimura said.

“I don’t think there’s much of a chance this won’t get built,” he said.

If the DWP misses the 2003 deadline, it can be fined as much as $25,000 a day or department officials could face jail time, he said.

“This law really does have teeth,” he said.

To obtain a waiver, the DWP would have to provide an alternative to filtering to disinfect the reservoir of bacteria and viruses, Yoshimura said.

Cryptosporidium and giardia, microorganisms sometimes present in the intestinal tracts of warm-blooded animals, have been found in Encino Reservoir. Officials say those bacteria can be harmful and in some cases fatal to infants, the elderly or those with weakened immune systems.

The DWP can’t document when or if anyone has ever gotten sick or died as a result of contaminated water from Encino Reservoir because it is difficult to pinpoint where a virus originates, Yoshimura said.

To avoid filtration, Encino Reservoir would have to be free of runoff, said Gary Yamamoto, regional chief of the state health department. Poor access to the site is not a condition that warrants a waiver of the federal regulation, Yamamoto said.

Reservoirs can avoid filtration “if the water quality is pristine, but the water quality is not pristine in that water,” he said.

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Neighbors of Encino Reservoir are not alone in their attempt to lessen the impact of a proposed water filtration project. The state health department, in an effort to comply with the EPA’s ruling, also ordered the DWP to ensure the safety of the water in the Stone Canyon reservoir in Bel-Air in 1989. The Stone Canyon project has proceeded along a similarly rocky road to the Encino one.

Initially, the mediation panel attempted to spare the neighborhoods by proposing the construction of a single filtration plant to be built near the site of the closed landfill in Mission Canyon in the Sepulveda Pass.

In 1995, that proposal was defeated when property owners living near Mission Canyon vigorously protested the mediation panel’s recommendation. Armed with a memo from City Atty. James K. Hahn, residents successfully argued that a 38-year-old conditional-use permit prohibited turning the scarred landfill complex into anything other than a park.

The DWP went back to the table and emerged with scaled-down plans for two separate projects at the Encino and Stone Canyon reservoirs.

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Filtration Plant Plans

Plans for a proposed $60-million water tank and filtration plant adjacent to Encino Reservoir may be hampered by the steep, narrow roads leading to the reservoir. The neighborhood routes shown below would be expected to carry 2,000 truckloads of cement to the reservoir.