AKASH GUPTA: Last fiscal year, LADWP's goal was to replace 1.1 miles of trunk pipe. They replaced less than one. LA has roughly 550 miles of trunk line. Even at the department's new target of 3.5 miles a year, each mile gets replaced once every 157 years.

The 100 year old pipe that just sinkholed Sunset Boulevard was already on LA's replacement list. Construction was scheduled for 2031.

LADWP budgeted $280 million to replace 6.4 miles of this exact 36-inch trunk line. The project is still in the design phase. Work starts in 2031… https://t.co/vnfEhUiGZS

— Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta) July 17, 2026

from Aakash Gupta,

The 100 year old pipe that just sinkholed Sunset Boulevard was already on LA's replacement list. Construction was scheduled for 2031. LADWP budgeted $280 million to replace 6.4 miles of this exact 36-inch trunk line. The project is still in the design phase. Work starts in 2031 and finishes in 2035. The pipe burst 5 years before the first crew would have touched it. The replacement math explains why this keeps happening. Last fiscal year, LADWP's goal was to replace 1.1 miles of trunk pipe. They replaced less than one. LA has roughly 550 miles of trunk line. Even at the department's new target of 3.5 miles a year, each mile gets replaced once every 157 years. Riveted steel pipe lasts about 100. And Sunset Boulevard has run this exact experiment before. In 2014, a trunk line from 1921 ruptured under Sunset near UCLA and sent roughly 20 million gallons through campus, submerging Pauley Pavilion. That break is what made LA's aging pipes national news and launched the current replacement program. Twelve years later: same street, same vintage of pipe, same aerial footage.

Cities schedule pipe replacement on political time. Pipes fail on material time. LA is replacing 100 year pipes on a 157 year cycle, and this morning is what the gap between those two numbers looks like. 

Dennis Keane adds, 

Los Angeles City steals  from LA Dept of Water & Power, which is funded independently thru utility fees. The stolen is used by the City 2 prop up it's general fund, so they can give it to illegals