Vista's fire hydrants haven't had regular checkups for years

By: CRAIG TENBROECK - Staff Writer | Saturday, April 8, 2006 11:24 PM PDT ∞

VISTA ---- Inspection and minor upkeep of Vista's fire hydrants continues to be pushed to the back burner, with firefighters too busy handling emergency calls to do the work, and a volunteer maintenance program failing to gain momentum, city officials said this week.

The city's 2,745 hydrants haven't had regular checkups for years.

Until about five years ago, the city tried to check each hydrant at least every two years, City Manager Rita Geldert said Thursday. But with a rise in emergency calls ---- 8,614 last year ---- firefighters started spending less time with the hydrants.

"Frankly, right now, they don't have time, because they're going from call to call to call," said Assistant City Manager Rick Dudley.

Fire Chief Gary Fisher said the city's hydrants are in good shape and that he knows of only one instance in the past year when firefighters tried to tap a hydrant and found it wasn't working.

But, he added, the preventive maintenance still needs to be done.

"We take that responsibility very seriously," he said. "The problem is trying to find a way to do it."

A "very old" agreement


Painted a faded yellow and often pockmarked with rust, hydrants within city limits are owned by the Vista Irrigation District, which provides water to Vista and some other areas of North County. A 1982 agreement splits the maintenance responsibilities between the Irrigation District and the Fire Department.

It stipulates that the Fire Department is in charge of "minor maintenance" ---- painting, removal of weeds around hydrants, replacement of missing caps and nuts ---- as well as annual inspections to ensure the hydrants can deliver water. For its part, the Irrigation District repairs nonworking and damaged hydrants when they're reported.

"It's a very old agreement," Mayor Morris Vance said. "It was made in the days when firefighters would respond to one or two calls a day."

Hiring an outside vendor to inspect and maintain the hydrants can be expensive. Geldert estimated it would cost $50,000 to $75,000 for service in Vista.

But the issue of hydrant maintenance is about more than just the high cost and lack of manpower, city officials said.

The question is: "Do we pay somebody to maintain the district's hydrants or does the district pay for them?" Dudley asked. "I'm not sure that has been resolved."

In 2003, the city asked the Irrigation District to add a fee to its customers' bills, which would pay for a vendor for minor maintenance. The Irrigation District, however, was concerned that Proposition 218, which requires voter approval of new fees and taxes, could present a legal hurdle, Fisher said.

The city was asked to produce a legal opinion about whether Prop. 218 applied, but according to a recent staff report from the Irrigation District, that opinion was never presented.

Fisher said he's had preliminary discussions with John Amodeo, the Irrigation District's general manager, about bringing the issue back to the district's board ---- hopefully in a few months ---- when the city's Prop. 218 analysis is completed.

Amodeo was on vacation last week and could not be reached for comment.

At least one Irrigation District board member, Howard Williams, said he would not support adding a fee to the water bills.

In the meantime, the Fire Department is trying to figure out a way to shoehorn water-pressure tests for the hydrants back into its regular schedule.

These bare-bones inspections wouldn't include weed clearing, preventive maintenance or refurbishing the blue reflective markers that indicate the location of hydrants. "It would simply be a matter of making sure we have water when we turn the valve," Fisher said. "That's not really the way to do it, but at least it's a stopgap measure."

A big job


Since 2004, Paul Grubaugh has been paid to maintain the approximately 700 hydrants within the Vista Fire Protection District ---- roughly 17 square miles of unincorporated land just outside the Vista city limits.

Grubaugh, a retired firefighter who spent 29 years with the Vista Fire Department, opens the hydrants to make sure they have water, clears the weeds from around the base, gives them a fresh coat of paint and puts blue dots in the street.

If hydrants are missing their brass caps, he slips on a plastic sheath to protect the threads that attach to the fire hoses.

Hydrants are often damaged by cars or vandalized, Grubaugh said. The caps are often stolen and sold as scrap metal.

During his first year with the Fire Protection District, Grubaugh found 14 hydrants that were either dry or damaged and reported them for repairs. Last year, he found only a few with damaged threads and only one without water.

Though Grubaugh said he can only guess how hydrants within Vista's city limits fare, "logic indicates that there are undoubtedly some hydrants that aren't working."

Because firetrucks carry their own water, a malfunctioning hydrant will not necessarily delay the time it takes to start dousing a fire, but it can make it harder to set up a supply line, Grubaugh said.

"Basically what they're doing is rolling the dice," he said of the city's inaction.

Grubaugh also said Vista's situation is "not unique at all" when compared with other North County cities.

Insurance impact


If hydrants continue to sit unattended, insurance rates in the city could rise, Fisher said.

A fire department's rating, which is determined by the Insurance Services Office, can be one of many factors that insurance companies check when determining insurance rates.

The insurance office evaluates a broad range of criteria ---- from equipment to station distribution to water supply ---- and ranks fire suppression programs on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the best.

Vista has achieved a Class 3 rating, Fisher said.

The most recent full survey of the city was performed in 2000.

With a large number of grading criteria, points lost for hydrant service would be a small part of the big picture, but "when you go through these ISO ratings you need every advantage you can get," Fisher said.

If a maintenance and inspection program is restarted soon, the last few years of maintenance lapses "would have a fairly minor impact, if any impact at all" on the city's rating, Fisher added.

Community efforts


Starting in late 2004, podiatrist and City Council candidate Michael Dinnel attempted to rally volunteers from local service groups to relieve the busy firefighters of the maintenance responsibilities.

The program worked for a few months, then faded.

"We don't have anyone volunteering now," Fisher said. "That program didn't work out quite as well as we'd hoped."

City officials said interest died out. Dinnel said last week that it was difficult to keep the volunteers enthusiastic when it took the city several months to put together a short training program. Sometimes, when a group of volunteers showed up at the fire station, tools weren't available, he said.

"Trying to get cooperation was like pulling teeth from a chicken," he said.

Eventually, Dinnel put the program on hold. He said Wednesday that he'd try the program again if he felt the support would be there.

"This would have cost them nothing," he said. "Instead, we're sitting here with fire hydrants that are worse than ever."

Mayor Vance said changing the status quo remains a high priority for the city and he would like to see Vista's agreement with the Irrigation District revised.

"We've got to figure out some way to get it (the maintenance) done, because you can't have a fire hydrant not work when you get out there to fight a fire," he said.

Contact staff writer Craig TenBroeck at (760) 631-6621 or ctenbroeck@nctimes.com.

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