On Tuesday night, LVMWD’s Board of Directors heard a report from the newly created ad-hoc committee (Len Polan and Lee Renger) about doing a probability study on the need for the water storage tank. The purpose of the committee was to come up with a scope to determining the probability.
Several minutes into the agenda item, Director Caspary (president of LVMWD’s board of directors) decided to disband the newly created ad-hoc committee. At this point, it appears there will not be a probability study.
It’s difficult to capture the reasoning of disbanding the committee. As you can see from the video, it’s nearly impossible — especially without being accused of bias — to capture the tone, decorum, and discussion of LVMWD’s Board or Directors, and specifically of it’s president making decisions without board comment nor vote. It wouldn’t matter how factual it is, a report would come off as biased regardless.
You’ll have to watch that section of the meeting for yourself. Let’s just say, it wasn’t boring to watch.
http://lasvirgenesmwd.swagit.com/play/09112013-902
The discussion on this board item begins 1 min, 15 seconds into the meeting (you can skip sections in the video).
The plans for the tank were approved a couple of weeks ago, and it’s expected to go to bid soon, with final approval for construction expected in December. The period to submit alternative ideas to the tank ended earlier this week.
RELATED NEWS
The below is not a Westlake Revelations article, but is included if you are interested in the tank project.
A Westlake Revelations reader pointed out that a 5 million gallon tank ruptured, causing a flash flood in a neighborhood. There’s already been a series of questions we’ve already been asked, but have not, and don’t expect to, investigate. Common questions include : whether LVMWD has assessed risk of tank failure, what could stop damage to residents, or how far water from a ruptured tank would travel into the neighborhood. We also cannot tell you whether the proposed tank design has a lower risk of failure or not than the one that ruptured, although presumably it does given progress in engineering such facilities.
If you are interested, you should ask the water district about this — use contact form at http://www.lvmwd.com/i-want-to-/contact-comment-inquire
The news coverage of the tank at the time indicates that despite regular inspections showing problems in some parts of the tank, the tank failed in a part not noted in any inspection. The tank failed prior to the expected design life. The failure took place in 1998 in Southern California (Westminster). If you are interested, see a series of Los Angeles Times articles at http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/water-tank/recent/5