September 15, 2016 

LAWT News Service 

Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson led a groundbreaking ceremony September 8 to mark the beginning of construction of a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) drinking water treatment facility in South LA.

Also present were LADWP General Manager David H. Wright, 99th Street Elementary Assistant Principal Marissa Borden, LADWP Water System Senior Assistant General Manager Marty Adams, and Board of Water and Power Vice-Chair William Funderburk.

The 99th Street Water Treatment Plant will replace the existing onsite chlorine system with a chloramine system to treat the groundwater pumped and distributed from the 99th Street Pumping Station complex. It will also provide new equipment that will increase safety and reliability for disinfecting the water supply. The facility serves more than 20,000 customers in the Watts and Green Meadows communities.

“Access to clean drinking water is essential for all families in Los Angeles. The new 99th Street Water Treatment Plant will ensure that residents of Green Meadows and Watts have access to the highest quality water,” said Harris-Dawson.

To meet drinking water quality requirements, particularly the Federal Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproduct Rule, LADWP in the process of converting all of the city’s drinking water supply from chlorine to chloramine — a combination of chlorine and ammonia. Chloramine is safe for every day uses, meets US EPA standards for drinking water, and has been used by utilities in the United States and Canada for nearly 100 years. Converting to chloramine will also make it possible to pump more groundwater from the 99th Street wells and Central Basin, both valuable groundwater sources.

“Through innovation, planning and a dedicated workforce, we at LADWP run our operations day in and day out to ensure your drinking water is safe to drink, clean and of the highest standards.  The 99th Street Water Treatment Plant is a critical water quality infrastructure investment and we are pleased to bring it to the South LA community,” said LADWP General Manager Wright.

The 99th Street Water Treatment Plant, estimated to cost $19.1 million, is a 2,300-square foot, single-story building constructed within the existing 99th Street Pumping Station complex. Construction will continue through November 2018.

The construction site is adjacent to the 99th Street Elementary School. LADWP coordinated with the school and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to ensure that concerns about safety and impacts of construction are addressed, and no fumes or gases are released from the facility. LADWP also recently engaged the school to be part of the Adopt-a-School Program, and offered LADWP water quality staff to be on hand to educate students about water quality and testing.

The treatment plant had been in the planning stages for several years and is not directly related to the recent problem of cloudy and discolored water in Watts and Green Meadows. Earlier this year, LADWP received more than 50 calls from customers with concerns about their water quality.

LADWP found that the discoloration was due to naturally occurring minerals such as iron and manganese that were disturbed within the pipes. To address the problem, LADWP flushed more than 50 miles of water mains in less than eight weeks and tested the water on a daily basis. Since then, the problem has been resolved, and LADWP has been following up with the customers who called and all other community members including the Housing Authority, schools and LAUSD. The Watts and surrounding neighborhoods have also been served chloraminated water from the adjacent south Los Angeles area since May as a temporary solution while LADWP shut down the 99th Street Wells Pumping Station to address the water quality issues.

“Reports of cloudy and discolored water from residents in May were alarming to say the least,” said Harris-Dawson. “Residents mobilized and together we demanded answers. I commend LADWP for their responsiveness to community complaints. We must continue to work together to ensure the highest quality water at all times.” 

Adams, LADWP Senior Assis­tant General Manager for the Water System said about the discoloration of the water served to the Watts area, “While the water may have been safe, it certainly wasn’t suitable or appropriate to serve to our customers. We take water quality concerns seriously, and this project underscores our commitment to ensure the water we provide to Watts and the surrounding area remains the highest quality.”

In 2015, LADWP supplied nearly 200 billion gallons of safe drinking water to 4 million residents and businesses. The water served surpassed all drinking water standards for health and safety set by the U.S. EPA and the State of California, State Water Resources Control Board-Division of Drinking Water.

To learn more about water quality in the City of Los Angeles, visit ladwp.com/waterquality.

September 08, 2016 

A 29-year-old man who police say was fatally shot before his body was found in a burning vehicle near St. Louis was a highly visible activist during protests over the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson.

St. Louis County police say Daren Seals’ body was found early Tuesday in Riverview near Fer­guson. His death is being investigated as a homicide. Authorities spelled his name as Daren, but other records show it as Darren.

Eighteen-year-old Brown, who was black and unarmed, was shot and killed in August 2014 by white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. The death and a grand jury’s decision not to indict Wilson led to sometimes-violent protests.

Viral video shows Seals comforting Brown’s sobbing mother atop a car the night the grand jury's decision was announced.

September 08, 2016 

LAWT Staff Report 

Nation of Islam’s Western Regional Minister Tony Muhammad, along with Stop the Violence’s Khalid Shah and Sentinel Publisher Danny Bakewell Sr. will hold a town hall at Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles September 15, not to just talk, Muhammad said, but to lay out a solution plan to three of the biggest challenges facing the Black community. Peace, education and economic viability will be the main topics of what organizers have dubbed the “United Hood Nation: 10,000 Fearless” movement. The goal is to first get the Black community to face its plight and then, to be actively involved in turning things around.

The movement was borne of a July weekend of community engagement that brought together thousands of south Los Angeles residents, leaders and celebs like Snoop Dogg, rap artist The Game, radio host Big Boy, rap artist Problem and Will.i.am who asked that the three major needs be addressed and effectively dealt with.

Since then, said Shah, “We have all resolved to work together across religious, organizational, agency and neighborhood boundaries. Members of the Safe Communities Initiative, a coalition of more than 40 agencies representing Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles County will be working together to turnU out thousands to create a new peace agenda for communities that have endured the recurring scourge of inner city violence…”

“We’ve tried everything from sit-ins, run-ins, vote-ins, don’t vote-ins...,” said Muhamad during a recent interview with the Sentinel.

“We’ve tried everything but two components. That’s our collective unity and the way we spend our money.”

The main problem is a communal sense of apathy here, he said.

“[For instance] we will stand up real quick when a police officer does something against us that [he/she] shouldn’t have done and we should stand up, that’s courageous. But what we don’t do… we say nothing, when we are killing each other,” he said.

“We want to eradicate that. We want it to be where we are just as irate and upset when it’s us killing us. And, we want to be able to have a movement where we go to that hood (responsible for the killing) like how we go downtown to chant ‘no justice, no peace’, in 48 hours we want to be able to have a thousand men and women in that hood [letting gang members know] we want them to stop…”

But stopping the violence won’t be enough, say organizers. A community needs to be educated as well as economically self-sufficient. Movement organizers said they want to set up a literacy campaign, to bring those who are deficient in reading and math skills up to speed.

“If you can’t read, you can’t communicate,” Muhammad ex­plained.

“We want to set up GED courses and college courses to get people to where they can read and write. They have to be able to measure. They have to know mathematics if they’re going to work construction jobs.”

With education will come the ability to compete in today’s economic climate, organizers said. Part of their plan is to set up training programs for those interested in today’s relevant job markets like construction and technology. They are calling for organizations already in place to help.

“Whether it’s the Brotherhood Crusade or Maxine Waters’ place we need to get people acclimated to [these fields].”

The community also needs to put more pressure on the city, the state and everyone who does business in the black community, organizers said.

“We’re going to be asking manufacturers like Nike and Adidas [who we support] to do a joint venture with the community,” Muhammad explained.

“We want the shoestring contract for instance and set up a manufacturing plant in Watts. If they don’t we boycott.”

Also, construction companies will have a difficult time building in Black neighborhoods if Blacks are not adequately represented on their payrolls, he said.

“These are the things the community asked us to do. I’m done with just getting together and talking. We’re coming with solutions…”

“This is a great opportunity for the community to rally behind Minister Tony Muhammad,” said Danny Bakewell, Sr. “I applaud him for his leadership in pulling together community members and notable celebrities such as The Game, Big Boy, and Will.i.am to help create solutions and demonstrate collaborative change. I am happy to be part of the town hall to support Minister Tony and I urge the community to do the same. We can make no progress unless we unify amongst ourselves to help ourselves.”

The town hall begins promptly at 7:00 p.m. (Sept. 15) at Holman United Methodist Church located at 3320 W. Adams Blvd.