by Monica Showalter
After paying for water and not getting any to put out the Eaton fire, Los Angeles residents burned out by that 2025 wildfire are still not getting any water, but once again are being asked to pay for it.
According to local radio station KFI:
Eaton Fire survivors in Altadena are pushing back against their water company after receiving bills for service on properties that have sat empty — and dry — for more than a year since the devastating blaze.
Ricky Parish is one of several frustrated residents who contacted ABC7 On Your Side Investigates after receiving an unexpected bill this month. Parish says the water meter on his lot was destroyed in the fire, and his property is now little more than bare dirt. He says he has used zero water on the lot since the Eaton Fire tore through the community.
"Absolutely none, there's no pipes," Parish said.
Parish received a bill for $37.85. Most of the charge is listed as a "water service charge," with a small portion going toward a "catastrophic loss fund." He was stunned.
"I thought, 'This is ridiculous. How can they charge us for something that we don't have?'" Parish said. "We haven't used water in over a year."
Altadena, remember, is the black area that never got the evacuation orders when the big Eaton fire broke out and destroyed their subdivision, causing around 20 deaths as a result.
The KFI report says that the sudden billing from unreceived services comes from the area's private water contractor, called the Lincoln Avenue Water Company, which defending its billing practices to thousands of residents who haven't seen water in more than a year, because, well, they haven't been issued permits to rebuild:
"Revenue from these charges directly supports fixed operational costs, maintenance, repairs, and system improvements, particularly in the wake of ongoing recovery efforts," LAWC said. "This is not a new fee... With the loss of 58% of our customers, continuing to waive this charge is not sustainable."
But of course, they haven't made any repairs or maintenance on the residents they are billing for these non-existent 'services' let alone delivering the water that their cash is supposed to pay for. They're just operating on a money-for-nuthin' model, spreading the cost around but delivering the service solely to the lucky whose homes survived the fire. Everyone else pays for nothing.
What are they going to do, shut off the non-existent water to those who refuse to pay? It makes me wonder if some residents will pay those bills in Monopoly money, on the old Soviet 'we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us' model.
The company may well have high maintenance costs but it's outrageous of them to try to balance their books on the backs of those who have lost their homes. They can raise the rates of those who still get water (which they have done, by $15, perhaps it will have to be more), or better yet, demand that the city give them the money, based on its failure to deliver rebuilding permits to its clients.
It's amazing how infrastructure seems to be optional in the brave new world of blue cities but bureaucracy never breaks down. And it's always the little guy who gets stuck with it, isn't it? It's the same with the City of Los Angeles demanding property tax on burned-out residents, and its even crummier refusal to waive building permit fees, which can run upwards of $20,000.
Yet this is a golden opportunity for the private water company to take a stand against the city and its failure to issue permits to rebuild in any timely manner. With an eight-year waiting period for permits by some estimates, these residents are going to be paying for non-existent water for nearly a decade before they can get so much as a drop of it to flush their toilets and wash their dishes.
Combine that with the city's failure to keep its fire hydrants filled with water that they did pay for and the insult to injury here is amazing.
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