Residents Save Water Officials

South Orange County residents have saved so much water after last week’s pipeline burst that local reservoirs are not only remaining stable but water levels are actually rising.

“It’s just terrific,” Keith G. Coolidge, associate general manager of the Municipal Water District of Orange County, the region’s wholesale water supplier, said Saturday. “I can’t stress that enough.”

After the rupture of the 26-mile Allen-McColloch Pipeline, water officials’ primary concern was that their calls for conservation would go unanswered--forcing them to tap into reservoirs and, potentially, causing disruptions in service to South County.

But the more than 200,000 residents and business customers most directly affected by the pipeline accident have cut their water use in half over the last week by leaving their cars dirty, their lawns dry or their clothes unwashed.

Before the accident, Lake Forest residents, who constitute most of the Santa Margarita Water District, were using 27.8 million gallons of water per day. But in the 24-hour period ending at 8 a.m. Saturday, they used just 14.1 million.

The Los Alisos Water District, which covers Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Coto de Caza, Ladera Ranch and Talega Valley, had been using 6.7 million gallons of water per day. Now, its customers are using just 3.1 million.

In all, including other areas, such as Irvine, that were encouraged to conserve to free up alternate water supplies to Santa Margarita and Los Alisos, water use in southern Orange County has dropped 25% this week, Coolidge said. It’s enough that not only have officials been able to avoid tapping into reservoirs, they’ve even been able to add water to reservoirs during the crisis, he said.

“We are either breaking even or gaining,” he said in an interview. “As long as we are breaking even, we’re going to be able to survive.”

And survive on schedule.

MWD said Saturday that it hopes to announce soon that the pipeline is functioning again and that the water crisis is over.

“Our construction schedule is proceeding as planned,” said Adan Ortega Jr., executive assistant to Ronald R. Gastelum, MWD’s general manager. “We had initially thought repairs would take seven to 10 days, and I think we’re pretty confident that we’ll be done in seven days--which means Monday.”

The pipe, buried 25 feet underground, ruptured after the Santa Margarita Water District asked the MWD, which took control of the main in 1995, for an influx of water through a series of valves in Lake Forest. A control valve opened and closed too quickly, investigators have learned, causing a surge of pressure to build up in the pipe.

The pressure ruptured a 10-foot section of the steel and concrete conduit. About 5 million gallons of water flooded a nearby strawberry field, and 700,000 water customers to the south of the break were left in the lurch.

On Friday, MWD said that computer software problems, inadequate training or human error caused the accident. Ortega said MWD hopes to have a final answer within a week.

MWD has been able to stick to its timeline largely because it discovered that it had enough surplus materials at its La Verne plant to build a replacement pipe. The rolling of the pipe and the construction of new joints to fit it with the rest of the pipeline began on Tuesday and will be complete by tonight, Ortega said.

“Everything was there,” Ortega said. “That saved a lot of time.”

It could save a lot of money too.

MWD initially said it would cost $750,000 to repair the pipeline. That estimate could fall by as much as $200,000, Ortega said, largely because of the ease of building the replacement pipe.

That would only reinforce MWD’s expectation that the repair will not force an increase in customers’ water bills.

“We’ll be able to absorb this,” Ortega said.