Are Martinez Fire Hydrants Up to Snuff in Case of Wildfire? City to Spend Money to Find Out

L.A. catastrophe brings to forefront need to inspect and maintain city fire hydrants; residents raised alarms about issue over a year ago when hydrants failed during Muir Oaks blaze

Are the nearly 1,000 fire hydrants in Martinez properly maintained and equipped should a major fire sweep through the city?

That’s a question the city hopes to answer soon, given the heightened fire safety concerns that have achieved new resonance in the wake of Los Angeles wildfire disaster.

City Manager Michael Chandler told the City Council on Wednesday that he plans to propose a budget item at the Feb. 5 meeting for the city to hire an outside contractor to inspect and ensure functionality of the city’s fire hydrants, as city staff — which run Martinez’s water infrastructure — are ill-equipped to perform this service and the Contra Costa Fire Protection District (ConFire) no longer plays a role in addressing it.

Chandler explained to the council that ConFire once assisted the city in “cycling” fire hydrants and “making sure they are fully functional,” but the city has been informed in recent years that ConFire is “not equipped to do that anymore.”

In a follow-up email to Martinez News and Views on Friday, Chandler elaborated that his understanding is that assistance from ConFire stopped amid budget and staffing cuts during the economic downturn and “also because of the prevalence of drought conditions,” as the testing of hydrants releases a significant amount of water.

While city public works and maintenance crews have always had primary responsibility for inspecting and maintaining hydrants within city limits, Chandler said, “Over the years, they have found it extremely challenging to manage these in-house.”

In his remarks to the council, Chandler said, “As to not be penny wise and pound foolish, what we are going to do is contract out this service. We have multiple contractors that are capable of doing this.”

A fire hydrant in the Parkside housing development near Mountain View Park shows clear signs of rust on Saturday afternoon. Steam from the Martinez Refining Co. can be seen in the distance.

Mayor Brianne Zorn applauded the plan at Wednesday’s meeting, saying in response to Chandler’s comments that “hiring a contractor to come out and do this will ensure that we have a full inventory of all our hydrants, and that if there is anything broken … it will be identified and we’ll be able to fix it. It’s important that we do this now when we don’t have any issues and we can fix (problems) before, like you said, we have any major catastrophes that would happen.”

But while the move was cast as a proactive measure to get in front of any public safety risks related to the condition of the city’s hydrants, it also raises the question of whether Martinez has been behind the curve compared with neighboring jurisdictions when it comes to inspecting and maintaining them.

In contrast to Martinez, where the city serves as its own water utility, most cities rely on independent utilities to provide and maintain local water services. And a cursory internet search last week showed that those utilities profess to operate robust hydrant inspection and maintenance programs.

For instance, the East Bay Municipal Utility District says in a document on its website on wildfire preparedness that it “implements an inspection and maintenance program, conducting about 800 inspections annually and repairing or replacing hundreds of hydrants each year. EBMUD also collaborates with fire departments to ensure hydrants are operable, accessible, and meet the needs of the community, addressing issues reported during inspections or as part of upgrading portions of our 4,200 miles of pipeline.” Similarly, the Contra Costa Water District said in a Jan. 10 news release, “CCWD inspects hydrants regularly and replaces them as necessary to ensure water is available when needed.”

The city of Pittsburg, which, like Martinez, operates its own water system, says on its website that its Public Works Department maintains an annual flushing program for its hydrants. “Each hydrant is checked to verify that it is in good working order. Water is allowed to flow for a period of time with the hydrant fully open to clean out the main and to make sure fresh water is getting to all areas of the distribution system.”

The question of whether Martinez’s hydrants have been properly inspected and maintained also came to the fore in the wake of a vegetation fire on Oct. 2, 2023 that came close to damaging homes in the Muir Oaks subdivision.

"When the fire trucks arrived, they didn't know that we don't have adequate water pressure in our fire hydrants," Muir Oaks resident Christine Friel told the City Council on Oct. 18, 2023, as reported by Martinez News and Views correspondent Tom Lochner. "They had to send water trucks up."

A photo of the 2023 Muir Oaks vegetation fire that threatened homes. Source: ConFire

From Lochner’s report in Martinez News and Views on Nov. 5, 2023:

Residents described a somewhat chaotic scene during the fire. Besides the lack of water pressure, the accounts they gave, based on their own observations or those of neighbors, included that some residents stood in their yards with hoses and fire extinguishers — one even pumped water out of his swimming pool; and that the local map of fire hydrants is so outdated, it includes one that no longer exists.

City engineer Joe Enke said during the 2023 council meeting that the city had “dodged a bullet” with the fire, and a ConFire report at the time of the incident read: "The two water tenders on scene played a significant role in providing water to the pumping engines due to loss of water pressure in the hydrants on Venner Road.”

Enke said at the time that “undersized pipes” were a significant issue in the Muir Oaks hydrant failure, something the city planned to fix.

Both Zorn and Councilman Satinder Malhi referenced the Muir Oaks hydrant failure at Wednesday’s meeting in voicing support for Chandler’s plan to hire an outside contractor to assist with inspecting and maintaining the city’s hydrants.

Referencing the scenes of devastation from Los Angeles, Malhi said: “There are lessons to be learned here, and one of them is that municipalities up and down the state need to be more proactive in making sure the infrastructure is up to par.”

Chandler echoed that sentiment in his Friday email: “The recent events in SoCal served as a reminder to us that we needed to get this done now before the warmer and drier months are upon us,” prompting the decision to ask the council to formally approve the hydrant project and a budget to fund it on Feb. 5.

Craig’s take: While it is good to see the city responding aggressively to address fire preparedness in the wake of the L.A. catastrophe, the situation disclosed by Chandler of the city’s struggles and lack of expertise when it comes to maintaining its hydrants also begs the question: What took so long? Shouldn’t the Muir Oaks scare from over a year ago have sent off alarm bells that the city needed to take the steps then that it is pursuing now? What if Martinez had been hit with a major fire in 2024 (or a major fire breaks out before the currently planned project unfolds) without the city having done its due diligence to ensure that its hydrants are up to the task? What if hydrants had failed during a much bigger fire like they did in October 2023? These are questions that the council and city staff should address in a transparent, candid manner when the project proposal comes up on Feb. 5.

Lochner reported in his Nov. 5, 2023 post for this newsletter that residents complained to the council then that the city was not acting fast enough to solve its water supply problem. He quoted resident Ashley Klim Fitzpatrick: "While there is movement (on the part of the city), it's slow; it's glacial, really." She added that the situation constitutes "a huge safety and property value risk to the city of Martinez."

A broader issue that also needs to be addressed is the continued wisdom of Martinez operating its own water system at a time when the climate emergency has made water a more precious resource than ever, and, as the L.A. catastrophe has shown, water infrastructure is more critical than ever to saving property and lives in an era of ever more frequent wildfires. While the preliminary research I’ve done is far from conclusive, it does appear that independent utilities like EBMUD and CCWD have a much firmer handle on fire hydrant maintenance than has been the case in Martinez, which only makes sense — after all, these are agencies whose sole reason for existing is the delivery of water. It only follows that they possess a level of expertise on matters of water infrastructure — including fire hydrants — that simply does not — and cannot — exist in a city that is attempting to run a water system in addition to its myriad other roles and responsibilities (Martinez also has faced its fair share of city hall staffing shortages and overall dysfunction in recent years). The pros and cons of Martinez serving as its own water utility have been raised from time to time — most recently in the context of increases to water rates, as was reported last year in this post — but this situation makes the question all the more vital, and begs for prioritizing a comprehensive study into whether the status quo should continue.

If history is any guide, there will be a strong temptation to cast the new fire hydrant maintenance project on Feb. 5 as a “proactive” measure by the city to get in front of the issue and simply move on from there. That would be a mistake. There should be hard questions asked that night about why it has taken as long as it has to get to this point — particularly following the Muir Oaks scare and the concerns raised to the council then by residents such as Fitzpatrick and Friel — as well as how Martinez’s hydrant-maintenance practices compare historically both with independent water utilities as well as other cities that operate their own water systems. The answers to those questions should dictate whether Martinez seriously reconsiders its role serving as its own water utility given its clear struggles to stay on top of fire hydrant maintenance.

In other City Council news…

Some other highlights from Wednesday’s City Council meeting:

• Caught in the middle of an intra-labor rupture between the Contra Costa County Building Trades Council (BTC) and the local carpenters union, the City Council voted on Wednesday to pursue a new Project Labor Agreement for major city-funded construction projects that would encompass both the BTC and carpenters, which is no longer affiliated with the BTC (for more on PLAs and how they work, see last week’s post). The city PLA that was negotiated with the BTC (which at the time included the carpenters) in 2019 expired last month when an effort to pass an extension was scuttled by the union schism. Several trade union leaders and members attended and spoke at Wednesday’s meeting, with the BTC arguing that the city could extend the expired PLA regardless of the carpenters’ decision to pull out of the council. However, the city attorney and council members made clear they could not move ahead until all parties to the 2019 agreement achieve a “meeting of the minds.” Referencing the argument by some union leaders in the council chamber that there was no need to fix a PLA that wasn’t broken, Councilman Greg Young said, “We don’t have a meeting of the minds, we don’t have a mutual agreement. And I believe that’s what this body wants. Who wins if we don’t come up with an inclusive meeting of the minds?”

• The council approved vacating an approximately 50-foot-wide by approximately 200-feet-long public highway easement on Wyoming Street to facilitate a housing project that is planned to include 41 units, at least eight of which would be designated for low-income residents. Because of new state legislation designed to to address the housing crisis, the project’s affordable housing component qualifies it as a “by right” development — meaning that the city has no authority to change or deny it as long as it meets certain standards. Although the vacating of the easement was considered a routine matter, that didn’t stop two residents from repeatedly interrupting the council discussion on the matter after they had already used their allotted three minutes of public comment time and shouting from the chamber in response to comments by city staff and council members. Mayor Brianne Zorn had to repeatedly remind them that they were no longer allowed to speak on the matter. Before the council vote, Zorn explained: “We are asked to vacate things all the time because of projects that move forward, and an easement is only there so that you can potentially do something with it in the future … this action is us saying we’re not going to do anything with it. We don’t have any control over it, we don’t own it, there’s no deed.” She also noted that the complaints from residents weren’t about the easement but rather that “they don’t want the project to go forward,” something the council had no authority to address.

• Police Chief Andrew White announced that Contra Costa Health is rolling out a new notification option for hazardous materials incidents at local refineries and other industrial facilities that will allow residents to “opt in” for text or email messages on incidents in which no off-site health impacts are anticipated. Contra Costa Health also has rolled out a new “Hazmat Notifications Dashboard” that will include a new “Level O” notification for incidents that are not expected to cause public concern, whereas “Level 1” notifications will encompass only those incidents with no anticipated off-site impacts that also involve “odor or audible impact; flaring lasting longer than 20 minutes; or other non-flaring visual impact.” (Note: The dashboard shows two Level 1 alerts, on Jan. 13 and 14, from Martinez Refining Co. so far this month). More information on the new alerts notification system and how to sign up can be found at the following link: https://www.cchealth.org/health-and-safety-information/hazmat-programs/community-warning-system

• White also announced that the police department is launching a “strategic enforcement team” that will focus on various public safety issues, including crime hot spots, chronic offenders and quality of life matters.

• City Manager Michael Chandler said the city plans to launch a dedicated page on the city’s website for traffic safety by the end of the month. He said the page will include tools, resources and interactive resources.

MLK Day of Service on Monday

Friends of Alhambra Creek and other community members are organizing a Martinez Waterfront Cleanup on Monday to recognize the Martinez Luther King Jr. holiday as a day of service. Those who would like to take part should meet at the Marina parking lot at 9:30 a.m. and bring their own gloves and any other safety gear or outdoor cleanup equipment that they may have; garbage bags will be provided, but residents may also bring their own.