The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of LA is set to repair one of the major water pipelines, which entails that millions of residents as well as businesses of LA County will be asked to fully cut their use of outdoor water.
The authorities discovered a leak in the pipeline which fetches water from the Colorado river and supplies it to Southern California. Repairing it will take no fewer than 15 days, from Sept. 6 through Sept. 20.
“We need to make this urgent repair to ensure this infrastructure can continue serving Southern California in the immediate term and for years to come,” said Brent Yamasaki, Operations Manager at the Metropolitan Water System, on Monday. “While we do this work, we need people who normally get water from this pipeline to eliminate their outdoor water use to stretch the limited available water supplies. We don’t take this call lightly, but it is what is needed at this time.”
A temporary repair has already been made, but a full one needs to be done as well. The latter would require the pipe to be shut off, leaving at least 4 million of the county’s residents without outdoor water for the aforementioned period.
Several other cities inside LA County as well as the city of LA will remain unaffected by this repair. Among the ones that will have to stop using outdoor water are Burbank, Beverly Hills, Long Beach, Glendale, San Fernando, Pasadena, Torrance, and San Marino.
In preparation for halting outdoor water use, the Metropolitan Water District is requesting people to put off planting new plants, turn off their sprinkler systems, etc. on the morning of Sept. 5, which is the scheduled cut off time.
The MVD noted that it wouldn’t “kill your lawn” if you didn’t water it for two weeks, but there is a chance yellow coloring would show up until a regular watering schedule was reestablished.
“We want to thank residents and businesses in advance for their cooperation while we make this critical repair,” Yamasaki stated. “Remember – two weeks without watering will not kill your lawn. You will notice some yellowing, but it will improve once you return to your normal watering schedule.”