Liability Worries Drain the Fun From New Lake

Nick Conver and his buddies call it “Our Lake.”

But to a development company, it’s a hazard.

So in a few days, the company plans to begin draining the lake, bigger than two football fields, which formed in a dry reservoir in a secluded Chatsworth neighborhood during the pounding March rains.

Nick, 14, and friends enjoy swimming in their new lake.

But what overheated kids regard as the Ol’ Swimmin’ Hole, some adults consider the Ol’ Lawsuit Just Waitin’ to Happen.

“That’s just the reality when you’re faced with a hazard,” said Richard Mahan, a spokesman for Porter Ranch Development, owner of the site.

Fearful it would be sued if someone was injured at the lake--especially now that school is out and youngsters have more time to play there--the company asked Los Angeles city and county officials for permission to pump it dry, Mahan said.

“We hope to start as soon as possible,” he said. “We want to eliminate the risk.”

The company spent a few hours pumping water into storm drains last week but postponed the work so the water could be tested for possible contaminants in case the surrounding land, which was once used for agriculture, contains harmful pesticides, Mahan said.

Results of the tests were pending.

Until pumping resumes, the company has stationed guards to keep people out of the lake at the corner of Chatsworth Street and Corbin Avenue.

Officials of the city Department of Water and Power and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works said the reservoir was not one of theirs.

They guessed that the reservoir, which neighbors say has been dry since the last big rainstorms a dozen years ago, was once a privately owned facility used by ranches in the area.

Even old-timers from both departments could not recall who maintained the reservoir or when it was used.

Overgrown with brush and trees, the reservoir looks like nothing more than a large gully.

Neighbors said that according to old property records and stories previous residents told them, an earth ridge at one end is the remnant of a dam built before the turn of the century.

The site is still depicted as a full reservoir on Thomas Bros. maps.

The water, which covers only the southern portion of the reservoir, was about nine feet deep after the March storms but with evaporation and seepage has declined to about five feet.

It is no longer percolating into the ground, however, so Porter Ranch Development officials felt that they had little choice but to drain it, even during the drought, Mahan said.

Nick, who lives near the lake, said he and friends enjoyed swimming there before the guard was posted, but confessed that the water was far from pristine.

Indeed, he said, “It was kind of icky.”

Nearby residents said the reservoir had not filled with water since 1978, when driving rains flooded the streets.

“People came by in rowboats,” said Corbin Avenue resident Spencer McCurry, recalling the sound of oars thumping against his fruit trees. “Kids were swimming in the street.”

McCurry’s neighbor, Bob Arach, remembers how his father, Louis Arach, spotted some boys heading for the lake after that same storm with fishing poles.

The boys left with a string of fish, apparently escapees from a nearby private lake that was partly drained after it began overflowing during the storm.

Arach and McCurry agreed that the lake is a hazard and said it should be drained.

But McCurry jokingly mused on the loss of his here-today-gone-tomorrow lake view: “There goes my property value.”