Dwp

Until further notice, it might be wise to carry a life preserver with you at all times in Greater Los Angeles, which had yet another water main eruption early Tuesday. It's like a geyser park out there, and fittingly, the latest gusher was near an L.A. Department of Water and Power distribution station in South Los Angeles. Where and when will the next one blow? I'm visualizing a news conference at which Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa tries to explain the DWP's latest troubles or persuade us he can avert a city budget disaster, and suddenly he's shooting skyward, riding a gusher.

The Los Angeles City Council moved closer Tuesday to placing on the ballot a controversial plan to create a watchdog agency at the Department of Water and Power, setting the stage for an election next year focusing on the nation's largest municipally owned utility. The plan was one of a dizzying array of nearly a dozen measures that the council may put before L.A. voters on an already crowded March 8 ballot. The proposals include measures to increase funding for public libraries, levy a new tax on medical marijuana collectives, reform campaign financing laws and bolster the city's emergency reserve fund.

When I first read the news last spring that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had named S. David Freeman as his deputy mayor for environmental and energy programs, I was sure that H. David Nahai's tenure as general manager at the city utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, would be short. Fast-forward to now: Nahai has resigned, and the mayor has proposed -- and the commission that oversees the DWP has approved -- Freeman, 83, to be the interim chief for six months. Thus the political musical chairs in the DWP's executive suite continue.

There will be no suspense in the air Tuesday as the Los Angeles City Council prepares to vote a second and final time on two years of electricity rate hikes, just as there was no question a week ago that the council would approve the increase. Unlike other increases requested in recent years by the Department of Water and Power, there is virtually no play in these hikes. They are necessary. The council will adopt them, as it must. In recent years, higher rates were supposed to pay for a smart, environmentally crucial but voluntary move away from the coal-fired plants that provided decades of electricity on the cheap.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had unusually sharp words Wednesday for unidentified high-level bureaucrats within the city's Department of Water and Power. At a meeting with Times opinion writers and editors, the mayor said his recent fight with the City Council over boosting electricity rates was made harder by the utility's own resistance to change. Though he nominates the DWP general manager and appoints its board, the real power is held by utility supervisors who "control the bureaucracy."

The Department of Water and Power is on a big push for conservation, but look at their new building in the San Fernando Valley, across from John H. Francis Polytechnic High School. They have windows that don't open. It doesn't really make sense for DWP to scream about conservation when they can't use natural cooling and heating in their new building. JERROLD J. FELDNER Van Nuys

In "4 Local Agencies Claim DWP Overcharges of $200 Million" (April 2), the DWP's Chief Operating Officer Frank Salas claims that "all our rates are fair and equitable . . . we are not overcharging anybody." Amazing. My home in the Hollywood Hills was destroyed on June 24, 2001, by a 99-year-old, broken DWP water main. It sent thousands of gallons of water and sewage pouring through my home, rendering it unlivable within an hour. I moved out that day and have not yet been able to return due to the extent of the damage.

MAMMOTH - For a High Sierra stream whose name evokes mountain serenity, Pine Creek is nobody's idea of harmony with nature. On many mornings over the last decade, residents from the eastern Sierra enclave of 40 Acres cut a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power chain so they could open a gate and redirect the creek's water their way. On many afternoons, DWP workers closed the gate to send the water cascading into the Los Angeles Aqueduct system...

Los Angeles officials said the city may abandon plans to build a highly controversial "green" power transmission line through unspoiled desert and wildlife preserves on a route east of the San Bernardino Mountains, focusing instead on alternative pathways mostly along an interstate highway where high-voltage lines already exist. The Department of Water and Power's proposed 85-mile-long Green Path North transmission line has faced fierce opposition from more than a dozen community and environmental groups, creating a political chink in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's efforts to cast himself as the leader of the "cleanest, greenest big city in America."

Storm clouds hovered over the San Fernando Valley, but businessman Jack Engel was smiling as he pointed to a row of solar inverters at one of two commercial warehouses he owns in Sun Valley. Power was being generated despite the weather, no problem. His problem, he said, has been the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. "I like the idea of solar, but unfortunately my experience is that the DWP doesn't support it," said Engel, who has run a small manufacturing firm on Pendleton Street for four decades.