Repairs to a water pipeline connecting the Colorado River to customers in Los Angeles County have been completed two days ahead of schedule, and residents and businesses are allowed to resume limited watering outdoors, it was announced Monday.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California completed repairs on a leak on a 36-mile pipeline, described as a primary conduit for about 4 million people, and that was supposed to take 15 days to complete when it started Sept. 6.
Metropolitan Water District officials say it is estimated customers in the affected areas reduced water demands by about 30% during the repairs.
“We know it wasn’t easy to heed our no-outdoor-watering call, particularly during the extreme heat wave the region experienced early in the shutdown, but Southern Californians stepped up their water-saving efforts again, as they have in the past, to help us through this critical shutdown,” Metropolitan Chairwoman Gloria D. Gray said in a statement.
Beverly Hills, Burbank, Glendale, Long Beach, Pasadena, San Fernando, and Torrance, and the Central Basin Municipal Water District, Foothill Municipal Water District, Three Valleys Municipal Water District and West Basin Municipal Water District were affected by the leak.
The MWD made a temporary repair to the leak in the pipeline earlier this year, and began operating the pipeline at a reduced capacity. The Water District scheduled the shutdown to install a longer-term fix to the pipeline to avoid a possible critical failure to the water supply.
“I want to thank the crews who worked tirelessly to complete the project ahead of schedule,” Metropolitan General Manager Adel Hagekhalil said. “This shutdown also required an extraordinary amount of coordination, and we wouldn’t have been successful without the public’s water-saving help and the cooperation and support of our affected member agencies.”
Hagekhalil added that customers “must still continue saving as much water as possible to help our region through this ongoing historic drought.”
