A week after a 93-yr-old water trunk line rupture in Los Angeles sent an estimated 20 million gallons of water gushing over the UCLA campus and Sunset Boulevard, the city's Dept. of Water and Power crews have finished work on getting the pipe back in service.
"The cause of the break was pipe corrosion and structural problems with the Y-juncture," says Joe Castruita, LADWP director of the Water Distribution Division. He says when the burst 30-in., riveted steel pipe was originally installed in the 1920s; engineers did not support Y-junctures with steel plates like is common practice today. "It would be engineered and welded differently by today’s standards to stabilize the pipes."