Tahoe Mountain News -- Angora water issues

This is the unedited version published in the July issue of the Tahoe Mountain News:


By Kathryn Reed

“If this fire occurred pre-1995, the outcome would have been dramatically different. We wouldn’t have had the water to stop it from going into Fallen Leaf Lake and god knows where,” Dennis Cocking, spokesman for South Tahoe Public Utility District, said a day after the Angora Fire was deemed fully contained.
Rick Hydrick, who used to be in charge of water operations for the PUD and is now chief of the San Juan Water District in Granite Bay, had the foresight in 1993 to ask the board of directors to beef up infrastructure.
It took millions of dollars and an increase in water rates to convert the older water systems the district had acquired in the 1970s and 1980s to be compatible with its network of pipes.
Extinguishing fires was not a consideration of water districts when the basin was being settled.
“California water laws said in those days you drilled a well and run a pipe to neighbors and cabins and you became a water company,” Cocking explained. “In post World War II they bought surplus pipe. It was 2-inch galvanized pipe. It was dirt cheap. There was really no eye toward fire suppression.”
STPUD started out in the 1950s strictly as a sewer district. When the Clean Water Act of 1971 passed, the small water companies realized they would not be able to comply with the standards. They sought out STPUD to buy them – and thus the agency became a water district as well.
Today the utility district has 14 active wells, 29 pressure zones, 14 tanks, numerous booster stations to pump water uphill and nearly as many pressure reducing valves to regulate water going downhill.
A few wells are deemed inactive because of a high level of arsenic. The college well isn’t used because of uranium issues. All could be used in fire situations – but didn’t need to be for the Angora Fire. For 14 hours the college well was used to fight the 2002 Gondola Fire.
Hydrick’s emphasis was on having enough water to fight a fire. That meant installing tanks to hold thousands of gallons of water that could be tapped instead continuously draining wells. Fire hydrants were installed in strategic locations.
The Forest Mountain tank in the Tahoe Mountain area and the booster station at the Lake Valley Fire Department station on Lake Tahoe Boulevard were part of the 1993 plan and are part of the network that allowed continuous water and sustained pressure to fight the Angora Fire.
The U.S. Forest Service installed a 450,000 gallon tank and hydrant across from the Fallen Leaf Campground last summer which was instrumental in fighting the Angora Fire.
“What people need to understand is air resources don’t put out a fire. Crews on the ground do,” said Kit Bailey, fire chief with the local Forest Service office. “If we didn’t follow-up on the ground, (the air support) wouldn’t be effective.”
He did say air support is vital and that without the ability to tap into Lake Tahoe, Fallen Leaf Lake and Baron Lake, the fire would not have been contained in nine days.
Fire crews use water tenders to get deep into the forest. Tactical tenders can carry about 1,500 gallons of water, while support tenders have a 3,500-gallon capacity.
Crews associated with the multitude of agencies fighting the fire could be seen hooking up to hydrants throughout town.
“There were no pressure problems. STPUD did a great job,” said Jeff Michael, Lake Valley fire chief.
Even Rich Hawkins, the incident commander for the Angora Fire, praised the water district for directing water in a way that never left firefighters scrambling for the wet stuff.
“We can see what the water demand is in different zones,” Cocking explained of how his agency kept on top of the water needs. “You can move only so much water between 12 and 14 inch pipes,” adding that a bottleneck can occur as water is diverted.
Typical water for the district is about 5 million gallons a day. That consumption doubles in the summer, sometimes reaching 12 million gallons a day. Eighteen million gallons is full capacity. The district hit a record 17.26 million gallons on June 24, surpassing the 14.14 million gallons used to fight on the Gondola Fire on July 4, 2002, Cocking said.
The summer surge has everything to do with landscaping needs, he said.
“Customers were good about conserving water. The only thing we did try to crackdown on was on (June 26) when it flared up we had people on Ski Run running sprinklers on their roof,” Cocking said, though he admitted he understood why those closer to the fire soak roofs. “When you can see fire at the end of your street you need a gun and a badge to get someone to turn their sprinklers off.”
Even Chief Michael’s wife had a sprinkler going on their wood shingle roof on the house they are remodeling in the Tahoe Keys.
About 10 significant leaks erupted during the fire because of the expansion and contraction on the older parts of the system.
The biggest concern was when the fire jumped Highway 89 on June 26, a dozer hit a blow-off and broke the line.
“They were able to fix the leak in about a half hour while at the same time looking over their shoulder for fire,” Cocking said of the PUD crew. “The rest of the leaks were characterized as small to moderate – not gushers going up in the air.”
The district did six rounds of bacteriological tests at 11 sites during the fire to make sure the water was drinkable. With the pressure variations, Cocking said, the concern was for back siphoning.
“We were confident we had not sucked anything totally dry. There’s always sediments and rust that settle to the bottom of a tank,” Cocking said. “A few people said their water was red. That’s iron oxide.”
On July 5, the PUD board voted to waive water and sewer charges until people are ready to rebuild as well as waived all penalties for the second quarter for those whose payment arrived late.
The district is also prepared to work with people who want to set up RVs on their site while a permanent dwelling is constructed.
An option for burned out residents is to install a freeze-proof yard hydrant. STPUD can give a plumber the specifications for these.
Normal water operations can’t be turned on at the street because “it will bubble over their foundation,” Cocking said.
On June 25, STPUD had crews in the area shutting off water systems and continued to do so the rest of that week.
“Now we are looking at the sewer system. We have broken and exposed clean-outs for those homes,” Cocking said. “Starting (July 9) two local contractors will be capping those off. Our concern is if we get debris in those and when the rain starts it causes stoppages down the road.”
The other thing the district is doing to aid homeowners is using a GPS system to mark the water and sewer lines so it will speed up the rebuilding process. That should be finished in mid-August.