Gallons of potable water down the drain
Lakeside Park Water Company let its water run into a South Lake Tahoe street for about 36 hours.. Photo/LTN
Updated Aug. 3 9:45pm
A landscaping water line ruptured this weekend in South Lake Tahoe, spewing unknown gallons of water down the drain.
Lakeside Park Water Company was going to wait until Monday to fix the leak on Pine Boulevard, but city officials said it was imperative they fix it ASAP. The water had been obviously going into the gutter and buckling the sidewalk since early Aug. 2. The line was fixed about 36 hours later.
It meant customers near the state line being without water from 2-6:30pm Aug. 3 while the repairs were made. It is not known how many were without water, but a number of hotels were affected.
“Upon investigation it is a landscaping irrigation line. We will confirm ownership in the morning,” City Manager Nancy Kerry told Lake Tahoe News on Aug. 3.
Lakeside officials are confident it is a city-owned water line.
“It is a city line on city property; a fact that apparently escaped the city,” Jack McLaughlin, president of Lakeside Park Association, told Lake Tahoe News.
The city has vegetated drainage basins throughout town, so this could be what was being irrigated.
While McLaughlin didn’t have the number of gallons that were lost, he said, “It wasn’t a lot of water, it wasn’t a major break.”
— Kathryn Reed
who the hell is lakeside water co. an why is this not a city well? LWC belongs in the keys, with all the other corrupt rejects.
Wholly disappointing to say the least. I have to wonder how this would be handled if an individual property owner had a hose or sprinkler system malfunction that caused this much waste.
They need to be fined $500/day under the new California drought laws. We can not afford to waste it this year.
Well apparently the City needs to be fined.
This is sure a pain for the water company for sure but Lakeside draws its water from the lake. I would think at the worst the water may actually make it back to the lake. Just think what would have happened if the water was possibly shut down during the Gaga convertor any other big event. Sounds to me like the water company which the city does not own may have actually thought about this a little bit.
Map says: “Well apparently the City needs to be fined.”
Why do so many people automatically blame everything on the City? The article specifically said “Lakeside Park Water Company”, so how does one extrapolate that to the City?
Hey jack, being at the head waters of the NV drainage, our water is pretty much inexhaustible here in Tahoe, the wells under us seep water from the lake and are being constantly renewed as long as the lake stays above the level of the wells. Since laws are in place to rarely allow the lake to go below the low water mark, we should be exempt from California’s drought problems.
4-mer: My understanding is it was a city water line and Lakeside Park Water Company is fixing it. So Nancy needs to step up to the plate and take responsibility and quit pointing fingers. I guess fine herself!
To say I refused to make a repair is an out and out lie. The incident was blown way out of portion, grow up people. The vegetation loved it…
Buck … what exactly is a city water line??
As the President of Lakeside Park Association (LPA) I have tried to provide updated information to LTN today but no one has called me back.
THE WATER LINE LEAK WAS NOT OUR RESPOSNBILITY OR OUR PROBLEM AND COULD HAVE EASILY BEEN REMEDIED BY THE CITY. It was a pipe owned by the City and run under the sidewalk. LPA has not been informed of the City’s irrigation water lines or of a shut off valve or we would have turned it off on Saturday and not impacted the hotels.
Apparently city officials who threatened us this weekend weren’t aware they even had a pipe line or a shut off valve in that area and demanded we turn off water to our hotel customers.
When we did Sunday and started digging at risk of hitting something before all utility providers had marked the ground, we found that THE CITY HAD A PIPELINE BURIED ABOVE OURS AND THEIR PIPE FITTING WAS BROKEN.
The next morning, we found there was also a city shutoff valve a few yards away that would have turned off their irrigation pipe and kept us from shutting down several hotels. IF THE COMPLAINING CITY OFFICIALS WOULD HAVE SHUT OFF THEIR VALVE TO SEE IF IT WAS A PROBLEM THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO PROBLEM.
I believe Lakeside Park Association is owed an apology from the City for accusing us of not responding when they are the ones who should have turned off their water line.
In the end, LPA employees and our hired contractors repaired the break in the city’s pipeline with their approval. The bill for this excessive weekend hourly contractor work, forced by threats from the city, will be sent to the city for payment along with a request to provide Lakeside with the locations of all irrigation lines and shut off valves within our territory.
We have no way to apologize to hotel guests and those who were headed to the concerts for this inconvenience due to a severe lack of communications and the resulting finger pointing. We should all work together so this does not happen again!
Apparently the failure occurred in a city-owned and city-installed pipe for a city landscaping system which it had previously connected to Lakeside’s water system to supply water. Lakeside repaired it as a courtesy and to restore full service to its other customers.
As with the cement plant and parking meter fiascos, Nancy Kerry should stick to areas where she has expertise. And remove the parking meters that the voters want gone.
BC…. Conservation of water should be done by everyone, every day, regardless of whether we have enough or not.