L.A. Plan to Guard Water From Sabotage Unveiled

Los Angeles officials Friday announced a five-year, $132-million plan to protect the city’s water supply from terrorist sabotage, saying they want to be vigilant although there have been no specific threats against local water facilities.

“We have decided that what we needed to do was to harden the targets, and we’ve done that by increasing security,” Mayor James K. Hahn said at a news conference in front of the Silver Lake reservoir.

The security measures, which are being paid for by the Department of Water and Power, include increasing aerial and ground patrols and adding barriers, sensors and alarms along reservoirs, treatment plants and storage facilities.

In addition, the DWP will continue expanded testing of the city’s water supply that began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Since then, hundreds of water samples from dozens of points along the system have been tested each day for possible contaminants.

“We will be the safest water system in the country,” said David Wiggs, general manager of the DWP.

The measures were developed in part by security consultant Rick Hahn, a former FBI agent who was hired by the DWP last fall.

Jerry Gewe, the DWP’s assistant general manager for water, emphasized that the announcement Friday did not result from “any immediate threat or any known threat upon our water supply.”

“However, general threats to the country at large ... cause us to take a long-term approach to protecting the safety of our water,” he said.