Like many in his Yorba Linda neighborhood, David Ramocinski had complained for years about the erratic water supply that left sprinklers sputtering and shower heads trickling. When nothing but air came out of his faucets, he wondered if there would be enough to protect his hilltop house if the bone-dry brush that surrounded it ever caught fire.
For three decades government officials have promised to build a reservoir that would finally provide a reliable water supply to the upper reaches of Hidden Hills Estates. But when a wind-whipped fire tore through the adjacent Chino Hills State Park in November, burning Ramocinski's home and 18 others as firefighters tried in vain to coax water from hydrants, the project remained stalled in bureaucracy.
A review of city and water district records by The Times found that the Hidden Hills Reservoir project has been at a standstill for years at a time, even though thousands of homeowners had already paid for it through property taxes, and $9 million sits in an account ready to build it.
As early as 1981, Yorba Linda Water District officials in a letter to the city said no one should even move into the fire-prone neighborhood unless the reservoir was at least under construction.
Nearly 30 years later, the reservoir has still not been built. And only after the November fire did it become a priority. As recently as 2007, the reservoir did not even make the top half of the district's priority list of water projects, ranking 20th out of 29, district records show. The top priority on the five-year list of projects was the district's new administration building, which was completed last year.
Water district officials said the main reason for the delay was they didn't know how big to make the reservoir because they were uncertain how many homes would ultimately sprout up on the hillsides. Build it too small, or too big, and you've wasted millions of dollars, they said.
If a reservoir holds too much unused water, "it flat goes stale. It just doesn't sustain the quality you need," said water district General Manager Ken Vecchiarelli.
In addition, the district had what appeared to be more pressing needs, including the replacement of a 109-year-old reservoir. Other factors that delayed the project included government-required environmental reviews and restrictions on building during the breeding season for the California gnatcatcher, an endangered bird.
