Major Investigation into LA Main Breaks

Los Angeles (myFOXla.com) - A major engineering effort is underway to find if there is anything other than an stretch of coincidence behind the rash of water main breaks that have bedeviled Los Angeles, including the rupture of an 8-inch cast-iron water main in the Westlake district today.

USC announced that its major civil engineering center -- the USC Center on Megacities -- will join the Jet Propulsion Lab and Cornell University to determine just what is happening on the thousands of miles of pipes operated by the Department of Water and Power under the city's streets.

"We will be casting a very wide net," promised USC engineering professor Jean-Pierre Bardet.

Engineers will pore over DWP records, visit the sites of water main breakages, and study characteristics of the system like pipe age, diameter, expected pressures, other parameters.

Bardet has acknowledged that the City's unusual new water-rationing program is one possibility for the rash of leaks. The city has this fall prohibited outdoor automatic watering on five days per week, causing some to theorize that water pressure variations are causing "water hammers" in the pipes.

But Barget noted that similar increased frequency of pipe breakages are occuring in other Southland cities where the water conservation plan is not in effect.

"We are not in any way prejudging the issue," he said. "We are finding facts, not assuming them."

The annoucnement comes as DWP crews repaired the third rupture in three days, raising the total of breaks over five weeks to about 40.

Today's break, at 1900 W. Court St. in the Westlake District, occurred around 1:12 a.m. and left about 20 customers out of service, Carol Tucker of the Department of Water and Power said.

The rupture comes on the heels of Thursday night's water break in the Mount Olympus area and another that occurred early Friday at 8063 Willow Glen Road near Thames Place, DWP spokeswoman Carol Tucker said.

"The West Court Street break involved an 8-inch cast iron main pipe," Tucker said. "We expect it will take four to six hours for repairs on the pipe," Tucker said around dawn.

Traffic was being routed around the break. Tucker said the water from the broken line did not dig a sink hole.