Seven months before the fire swept Los Angeles' Pacific Palisade area, city water managers had developed plans to revive the old reservoir to temporarily increase the area's limited water capacity.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was exploring options as the Santay Nez Reservoir, a major nearby reservoir, was taken offline as a result of torn cover. This is because authorities began preparing for repairs early in 2024.
An email released to the New York Times under the Public Records Act shows that the city searched for solutions to fix a supply shortage for months, but despite lengthy discussion and preliminary preparations, it failed to fix the issue of time.
In early June 2024, crews cleaned the Pacific Ocean's Parisades Reservoir for several days, a facility about three miles away from the massive Santay Nez site that they retired in 2013. Authorities write that “we are ready to temporarily serve the Pacific Palisades Reservoir while the Santa Inez Reservoir serves.”
Once the cleaning was complete, the crew planned more work, including disinfecting the area and installing new pipes.
However, plans to bring the old reservoir back online were never completed. Ellen Chen, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said in an email Friday that the city ultimately determined that returning the reservoir online could pose a risk to workers and residents of nearby homes due to structural and other safety issues.
By the time the fire broke out in early January, Palisade Reservoir in the Pacific Ocean was not in work, and Santay Nez Reservoir was still not two months away.
The inability to return any reservoirs online seriously undermines the potential water supply in the area. The Santay Nez Reservoir was able to hold tens of millions of gallons of water. Pacific Palisades Reservoir can hold more than 6 million gallons.
Instead, when forecasts pointed to a fire risk before the Inferno erupted, city officials said they relied on three tanks in the area, each with a capacity of around 1 million gallons. By 4:45pm, one of those tanks had dried up a few hours after the fire eruption on the morning of January 7th. Another person was empty that night. The third was drained by 3am the next day, but the fire was still burning. Firefighters reported dry fire hydrants in some areas.
I don't know how much difference the extra supplies will make. However, it is clear that the second reservoir, when activated, could help maintain the total water capacity by helping to maintain the water pressure in the area.
Matthew Stampff, a member of the legal team representing more than 750 wildfire victims, said he was trying to get records and answers from the city about how both reservoirs were managed. He said he is at the heart of some of the legal claims surrounding the fire.
“I believe it played a role in the destruction,” he said. Fire victims added that they were not informed that the city had considered rebooting Palisade Reservoir in the Pacific Ocean.
The site has long been considered a fire-fighting supplement. Before the city worked to add floating covers to Santay Nez reservoirs to improve water quality and security, city officials added aquariums to the Palisades reservoir in the Pacific Ocean, allowing firefighters to land helicopters to restock supply.
Chen said the reservoir, built in 1929, sat longer than ideal in the sense of low elevation, causing quality issues, and the reservoir has retired. She said the cracks were also causing leaks, damaging the roof of the reservoir.
Over the past few weeks, crews have completed repair projects at Santay Nez Reservoir, and the city has begun refilling the reservoir in hoping to return to service this week. But in the process, city officials said more leaks had been found and had to be drained again.
City officials say they hope that Santay Nez Reservoir will be in service by the end of June.
