Signs of Silver Lake.

Hey, there’s a new sign on the reservoir fence, what’s up with that?

Let’s get a closeup.

Hmm. Let’s see, the LA DWP discovered the problem (which is considered to be a kind of poison or health hazard) sometime in October, 2007. They released a statement about it 2 months later, on December 14, 2007, as reported by BloggingLA. They put this sign up on January 11, 2008, for, you know, those people who don’t get DWP bulletins delivered to their mailboxes. Well, no one ever claimed the LA DWP are Hurry Up Guys!

The LA Times says:

The reservoirs delivered water to an estimated 600,000 consumers, but state public health officials say the dangers were minimal. Bromate, they said, poses a small cancer risk only after being consumed daily over a lifetime.

[snip] But two elected leaders criticized the city agency for not alerting the public until Friday, more than two months after the contamination was discovered and only after being urged to do so by the state health agency.

“I praise the swift and quick reaction of the DWP, but I don’t like how long it took the residents of Silver Lake to find out about it,” said City Council President Eric Garcetti, who represents part of the area along with Councilman Tom LaBonge, who also criticized the delay. “The ratepayers deserve full information when public health is concerned.”

There ARE underground reservoirs full of water just to protect the park from fire, and for the zoo; from what I read they weren’t “available” during the fire. It was too hot. Or fiery. One more good idea gone to hell, I guess.

So that is why they had to carry water from Silver Lake over to the park in those water helicopters. I would estimate (and since those helicopters flew right over my head, I’m a good counter) that 90% of the water used against the fire came from Silver Lake. So while I do support unions, and wish all the best for every single DWP guy or gal, I wish they’d get their ass in gear and take care of the Silver Lake reservoir draining and refilling just a wee bit faster, because no one knows how dry Griffith Park will be this spring.

As Mack Reed said in the Blogging LA post:

More on this as it develops, but questions are already piling up in the back of my head:

• What will this huge body of water look like when it’s empty?
• Where will they get water in case of another wildfire like the Griffith Park blaze?
• What’s it going to smell like around Silver Lake once all the water’s drained and the leftover sediment starts to dry?
• And can the fenced-in coyotes learn to drink from the sprinklers?

These are not specks on the camera lens, but seagulls on Silver Lake. Where will all the seagulls go?

I don’t know if there are actually coyotes fenced in, as he writes. Wouldn’t they have run out of food a long time ago, unless someone was carting dog food into them? I do hear them near the park, but I run on the western side, not the the bushier east side, so I haven’t seen them. I’ve seen skunks and a raccoon inside the reservoir, but there are small holes in the wire that allow them to go in and out.

Near the full moon this month, very late at night, I heard a Canadian goose over there, honking about something important. (I’ve read that some people keep geese as good watchdogs!) Then some coyotes chimed in, in a very beautiful song that I wish I could have recorded. Actually, the coyotes near the lake have the best voices I’ve ever heard; perhaps they’ve become inbred, inside the park. Then, not to be outdone, two Great Horned owls almost above my head joined in. (I couldn’t see them, but I know their calls.) It was almost funny, but more like awesome.

Oh, and DWP guys? Silver Lake is two separate words.