Complaints Flow From Failure of DWP’s Plastic-Pipe Dream

The use of copper dates back to the dawn of civilization, and this is supposed to be the age of plastic wonders. But do not try touting the marvels of plastic to some residents of Chatsworth.

The 21000 and 21100 blocks of Nashville Street, where houses on half-acre lots are valued by the residents at between $200,000 and $300,000, was chosen six years ago by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power as a test site for a type of plastic water pipe.

Residents now complain that the claims once made for the pipes do not hold water--and neither do the pipes.

Almost every week, they said, the pipes burst, forcing residents to go without water for several hours and watch helplessly as it bubbles through the pavement and onto the street.

“That’s when the DWP shows up and the jackhammers start going and the trenches are dug,� resident Anne Howard said. “It happens all the time. You just come to expect it.�

DWP acknowledges that the experiment on Nashville Street--the only place in Los Angeles where the pipe was tested--has been unsuccessful, said William Kingston, a DWP engineer in charge of pilot projects.

“These pipes were touted as the answer to all problems back in 1979 when we got them,� Kingston said. “Obviously, that hasn’t been the case. They’re starting to show signs of fatigue and are bursting open like garden hoses.�

The pipes, connecting 36 homes to the water main, were installed as an experiment in cost savings. They cost about $50 per house less than copper pipes, Kingston said.

Kingston said that pipes to 10 homes have ruptured in the past year and that DWP officials are considering scrapping the project and replacing the plastic pipes with copper ones.

However, residents claim that many more pipes have burst open than DWP admits, and some have done so more than once, turning the street into a patchwork of asphalt as DWP workers dug up broken pipes and filled in the trenches.

“The street’s all chopped up and when you drive over it, you feel like you’re going over a whole lot of speed bumps,� resident Don Miner said. “The DWP’s been very good about coming out and fixing things up, but I don’t know how long this can go on.�

Kingston said other cities across the country also purchased the plastic pipe when it became available in the late 1970s and have experienced similar problems. Those cities are also taking steps now to do away with the pipes, he said.

“We’re discussing what we should do out there, because those pipes really have caused a disruption to those homeowners,� Kingston said.

That is encouraging news for homeowner Joe Russo, an architect who moved into a Nashville Street house in June. He was “completely in the dark� about the problem until he moved in, he said, staring at a trench he said was filled Friday morning by DWP.

“This situation is just out of control,� he said.