The Coundown Has Begun

The ban on outdoor watering begins next week!

From March 18 to 27, the F.E. Weymouth Water Treatment Plant in LaVerne will undergo a seismic retrofit, during which a major MWD water pipeline through the San Gabriel Valley that supplies about 40 percent of Pasadena's imported water will be shut down.

Everyone in Pasadena will be prohibited from doing any outdoor watering, with very few exceptions.

Beginning this Friday and through March 17, give your gardens and shrubs as much water as you like so they'll be well-saturated during the March 18 to 27 shutdown, then cover flower beds with mulch to prevent the soil from drying out.


If you have a gardener, be sure that person is aware of the watering restrictions! You don't want your gardener to unknowingly put you at risk of a citation and fine.

If you have a sprinkler system, be sure to set the timer so it's turned off from March 18 to 27.

If you don't have a sprinkler system, that doesn't mean you're off the hook! All methods of outdoor watering with city tap water, including by hand, hose, drip, manual and automatic sprinklers, will be strictly prohibited during the shutdown, at all times.

See more information, including tips and answers to frequently asked questions, here.

Ten days will pass quickly, I promise!

Oh, and don't go saying the shutdown isn't necessary since we've had a lot of rain lately. A few inches of rain has done little for our natural supply of water in Pasadena and certainly has nothing to do with 40 percent of our water supply from an outside source.

I'm just sayin'...

Mystery History -- Solved!

Nobody got it exactly right, but Bellis was the first person to name one person in the photo correctly with her 7:55 a.m. Tuesday guess "Mulholland and co. planning to buy up Hahamongna to bring water to LA? (after meeting fierce resistance from the Indiana colony, they headed up to Owens Valley)" so I'm giving her this week's fabulous prize.

Left to right in the 1931 photo above are Franklin E. Weymouth, William Mulholland and W.P Whitsett, and they're actually in the desert*. These three visionaries were responsible for bringing water from northern and central areas of the state to Southern California -- an intricate, expensive and bold move. They predicted that the future growth of Southern California -- Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties -- would be tied directly to the capacity to import water from somewhere else.

And they were absolutely right.

Weymouth had been the chief construction engineer with the U.S. Reclamation Service (now called the Bureau of Reclamation) when he joined the team that conceived of the California Aqueduct. He was the first general manager and chief engineer of Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) from 1929 to 1941.

Mulholland was a self-taught engineer who had been responsible for the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, which brought water from the Owens Valley to L.A.

Whitsett served on the board of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and was MWD's first chairman of the board from 1930 to 1947.

Today the California Aqueduct, managed by the California Department of Water Resources, is a series of canals, tunnels and pipelines that transport water from Northern and Central California to Southern California.


What's the significance of this week's Mystery History?

MWD is preparing for a seismic upgrade of its F.E. Weymouth Water Treatment Plant in La Verne (below).


From March 18 to 27 (and possibly longer), Pasadena’s water supply will be cut by 40 percent due to the temporary shutdown of a major regional water pipeline served by the treatment plant.

That's where you come in.


You won't be allowed to do any outdoor watering (with some exceptions) during that 10-day period, so here are some answers to frequently asked questions.

There will be a 7:30 p.m. public hearing at the Pasadena City Council meeting this coming Monday to declare a Level 4 water shortage emergency. The agenda will be posted here by tonight and you'll be able to attend the meeting in person or watch it live on KPAS (channel 3 on Charter in Pasadena and 99 on U-Verse) or via streaming video here (click on the KPAS logo)

We're all in this together!

*First time ever a Mystery History photo was not shot in Pasadena, but this was for a good cause.


Many thanks to MWD and Pasadena Water and Power.