Tap water in the Granada Hills and Porter Ranch areas was declared safe to drink Tuesday, and a boil-water order that affected more than 9,200 Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers was finally lifted.
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According to the DWP, the water was declared safe "following rigorous testing and reporting of water quality results of the California Division of Drinking Water."
Residents were advised to flush their pipes by running the water from all faucets for five minutes, and flushing all toilets at least once. Ice from automatic ice makers should also be discarded, and dishwashers and clothes washers should be run empty for one cycle. All affected residents will receive a $20 bill credit to account for the water used while flushing the pipes.
"We thank our customers for their cooperation and patience as we worked to complete our repairs and restore safe, high quality drinking water to the Granada Hills and Porter Ranch communities," Janisse Quiñones, LADWP CEO and chief engineer, said in a statement. "We are pleased to have worked with our regulators to ensure water quality is restored and we are able to get the all-clear."
After roughly one week without water service due to emergency repairs on an underground valve, service was fully restored to the affected customers at 2:27 a.m. Monday. Residents were told they can use the water to take showers, flush toilets, conduct water landscaping and any other household or business needs. However, customers in the affected area were still urged to continue using boiled or bottled water until DWP staff completed two rounds of water-quality testing.
That testing was successfully completed Tuesday, allowing the boil- water order to be lifted.
The outage began Aug. 5 when a valve broke during repair work at a pump station, cutting off flow through a 54-inch pipeline that feeds the 10- million-gallon Susana Tank. Crews had to excavate 24 feet underground to access the damaged valve, located near oil pipelines, a fiber-optic line and a gas line. The complexity of the site required widening the trench before the valve could be removed.
The outage came during a mini heat wave that saw temperatures soar well into the 90s in the affected area, which was bounded roughly by Rinaldi Avenue on the south, Balboa Boulevard on the east, De Soto Avenue on the west and the foothills and hills to the north.
During the outage, DWP officials said the agency distributed more than 1 million bottles of water and delivered more than 1,200 gallons to vulnerable homebound residents, including seniors and customers with disabilities.
With tap water service restored, the DWP on Monday night permanently closed its mobile showers and laundry facilities. When the boil-water order was lifted Tuesday, DWP closed its water-distribution locations.
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