GRIFFITH PARK—On June 17, Los Angeles District 4 Councilmember Tom LaBonge cut the ribbon at Headworks Reservoir East to mark the project’s first milestone.
After three years and a series of delays, construction on Headworks East, located just above the northwestern edge of Griffith Park and adjacent to the 134 and 5 Freeways, has been completed. When the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power broke ground in March 2012, the eastern reservoir—one of two—was originally scheduled to be finished by the end of 2014, and the whole project was slated to be finished by December 2017. Construction is estimated to continue into 2018.
When fully complete, the Headworks Reservoir development will encompass two underground concrete reservoirs with a combined capacity of 110 million gallons and a four-megawatt hydroelectric power plant. The $230 million project will replace the Silver Lake and Ivanhoe reservoirs and comply with the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s 2006 update to water quality regulations.
Headworks Reservoir is meant to address the Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection By-Products Rule, and the Long-Term-2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule. The former, according to the Federal Register, increases “protection against the potential risks for cancer and reproductive and developmental health effects associated with disinfection byproducts.” The latter protects “public health from illness due to Cryptosporidium and other microbial pathogens in drinking water.”
In addition to making the reservoirs EPA-compliant, the LADWP has also teamed up with the United States Army Corps of Engineers to “design and construct the Los Angeles River Ecosystem Restoration project,” according to a LADWP press release. This Ecosystem Restoration project will sit on top of the Headworks Reservoir site, and “is proposed to include riparian wetlands in a park like setting and open areas with equestrian, cyclist, and pedestrian access.”
