A System Built Into the Foothills

The KID service area sits in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, bordered by the City of Pasadena on the west, south and east and the Angeles National Forest to the north. The service area is divided into two geographic subareas: the "westside," including the Kinneloa Mesa, Kinneloa Canyon, Kinneloa Estates, Kinneloa Ridge and Dove Creek neighborhoods, and the "eastside," including the Kinneloa Ranch, Pasadena Glen and Sierra Madre Villa neighborhoods. With ground elevations ranging from 875 to 1,615 feet, the distribution system is divided into six pressure zones connected by transfer valves and booster pump stations that receive water from the District's wells and historic groundwater tunnels.

The January 2025 Eaton Fire significantly impacted the District and its community. Recovery and rebuilding are ongoing, and the figures below reflect the current state of the system as it is restored.

2 Active Groundwater Wells

The District's primary water supply comes from two vertical groundwater wells. The K-3 Well supplies the Eucalyptus or Wilcox Reservoirs, and the Wilcox Well supplies the Wilcox Reservoir. Both pump from the Pasadena subarea of the Raymond Basin — the first adjudicated groundwater basin in California (1944) — in which the District holds decreed rights of 516 acre-feet per year.

Since 2008, the District has operated under a voluntary 30% pumping reduction to help protect basin water levels, making its current annual baseline production right 361.2 acre-feet. The District supplements this through spreading credits and, when needed, leases of pumping rights from other basin parties.

5 Groundwater Tunnels

Long before electric pumps, water was "mined" from these foothills through hand-dug tunnels — some dating to the 1880s, originally built to serve the ranches of the area. The District operates five groundwater tunnels, with two additional inactive tunnels used for spreading only.

Since late 2023, most tunnel flows have been diverted to spreading basins due to naturally occurring fluoride levels in the source water, with the Delores Tunnel remaining in periodic service. The Delores Tunnel was damaged in the 2025 Eaton Fire, and all tunnel flows are now diverted to spreading, where the water percolates into the ground and earns the District groundwater recharge credits. The District's two active groundwater wells currently supply all water delivered to customers.

17 Miles of Water Distribution Pipelines

The intricate underground pipeline network that delivers your water is referred to as the distribution system. The District maintains approximately 91,000 lineal feet — about 17.3 miles — of transmission and distribution mains throughout its 460-acre developed service area.

Piping materials include unlined steel, asbestos cement, PVC (C-900) and ductile iron, ranging in size from 1.5 inches to 16 inches depending on the water delivery needs of the area. The District applies American Water Works Association service-life benchmarks to prioritize pipeline renewal by material, size and installation era, and its 10-year capital improvement program is steadily upgrading mains district-wide to enhance reliability and fire protection

10 Water Storage Reservoirs

The District operates and maintains ten potable water storage facilities — five welded steel tanks and five partially buried concrete reservoirs — at high-water elevations ranging from 940 to 1,637 feet above sea level, with a combined capacity of nearly 4 million gallons.

The water level in each reservoir maintains system pressure in the zone it serves and provides reserves for fire protection and emergencies. Steel tanks are inspected and maintained annually under a professional asset management program, and concrete reservoirs are inspected and cleaned by diving contractors under AWWA standards.

5 Booster Pump Stations

Moving water uphill through six pressure zones takes power. The District operates five booster pump stations — Eucalyptus, Sage, Vosburg, Glen and Wilcox — with a total of eleven pumps ranging from 25 to 75 horsepower depending on location and purpose.

Booster stations are controlled automatically by water levels in the destination tanks, and are supported by standby pumps, dedicated portable diesel generators and automatic transfer switches so water keeps flowing during power outages and emergencies.

6 Chlorine Disinfection Stations

The District's groundwater is naturally high quality and requires only precautionary disinfection. Six operational treatment stations maintain a chlorine residual of at least 0.5 mg/L throughout the distribution system, using on-site sodium hypochlorite generation at high-volume facilities and commercially supplied hypochlorite elsewhere.

All facilities are inspected daily and operational records are maintained as required by the District's operating permit from the State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Drinking Water.

114 Fire Hydrants

Nearly all of the District lies within a designated Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, so fire protection drives much of our system planning. The District maintains 114 fire hydrants, 353 system valves and 31 control valves throughout the distribution network.

The District's fire preparedness goal is for every hydrant serving properties within a Fire Hazard Severity Zone to deliver 1,500 gallons per minute for 2 hours — and 1,000 gallons per minute for 1 hour outside those zones — at a minimum residual pressure of 20 psi. Pipeline projects in the 10-year capital improvement plan are steadily upgrading mains and hydrants to meet this standard.

549 Active Water Services

Every service in the District is metered. The District currently provides water to approximately 549 active metered connections (as of July 2026) — mostly single-family homes in hillside and canyon settings, along with a school, a church currently under reconstruction, a Los Angeles County Fire Department station and a wholesale plant nursery. Rebuilding continues on properties lost in the 2025 Eaton Fire, and the number of active services is expected to grow as homes are restored.

The District implemented an AMI ('smart') metering system in 2022–2023, which reports consumption electronically and provides water use trends and alerts. In 2024, the District began upgrading to second-generation equipment and a new network, and the system currently operates on a mix of LoRaWAN and Amazon Sidewalk networks

5 Emergency Interconnections

The District maintains five interconnections with neighboring Pasadena Water and Power, allowing either agency to deliver water to the other during emergencies — an important layer of resilience for a small, self-supplied system.