By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-10 23:12:01 | Updated at 2025-01-11 02:17:09
3 hours ago
The $750,000-a-year LA water czar is responsible for a raft of failures that contributed to the devastating Palisades Fire, fire department insiders told DailyMail.com.
On Mayor Karen Bass's orders, the city maxed out its budget to 'attract private-sector talent', hiring Department of Water and Power (LADWP) CEO Janisse Quiñones on a $750,000 salary in May – almost double that of her predecessor.
Now, Quiñones is being blamed by LA Fire Department (LAFD) insiders for leaving a nearby reservoir disconnected and fire hydrants broken for months, DailyMail.com can reveal, leading to firefighters running out of water as they battled the devastating Palisades Fire this week.
And, Daily Mail.com has learned, Quiñones past employer is also linked to fire scandals. She was previously a top executive at electricity company PG&E, which went bankrupt over liability for several massive wildfires in California.
She served as senior vice president at Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) from 2021 to 2023.
The utility company's power lines sparked the second-largest wildfire in California history, Dixie, in 2021. Its involvement in the 2018 Camp Fire cost PG&E a $13.5billion legal settlement.
The firm's liability for allegedly causing fires was estimated at $30billion when it filed for bankruptcy in 2018. It exited bankruptcy in 2020.
Quiñones joined PG&E in April 2021 as Senior Vice President of Gas Engineering, switched to Senior Vice President of Electric Operations in July 2022, and left the firm in December 2023.
Janisse Quiñones, the newly appointed chief executive officer and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, bumbled through a press conference Wednesday (left) while addressing the lack of water available to extinguish the raging wildfires
Quiñones said water sources ran dry by 3am local time Wednesday and blamed it on low pressure in the system and the water being used faster than it was being replenished (Pictured: A firefighter removes a hose from a hydrant after it ran out of water)
Sources told DailyMail.com that since her hiring at LADWP, Quiñones oversaw the shutdown and emptying of a reservoir in the Pacific Palisades during brushfire season.
The shutdown meant firefighters battling the current Palisades Fire ran out of water faster, experts say.
The Santa Ynez Reservoir is designed to hold 117 million gallons of drinking water. But it was taken offline in recent months to repair a tear in its cover that exposed the water and potentially impacted its drinkability.
The shutdown was first publicly reported by the LA Times on Friday morning.
Former DWP general manager Martin Adams told the paper that having the Santa Ynez reservoir would have helped fight the Palisades Fire that wiped out most of the Pacific Palisades neighborhood this week.
'Would Santa Ynez have helped? Yes, to some extent. Would it have saved the day? I don't think so,' Adams said.
He said the crucial reservoir had been offline 'for a while' before the fires, but didn't know the precise date.
But a source in the LA Fire Department (LAFD) told DailyMail.com that DWP officials told them 'had it not been closed they probably would have been ok and had enough water for the fire.'
Insiders, however, tell DailyMail.com the DWP chief had been aware of the broken hydrants around the city for months
A well-connected former LAFD senior officer told DailyMail.com that lack of water was already a 'common' problem, exacerbated by DWP failing to fix cutoff fire hydrants
Sources told DailyMail.com that since her hiring at LADWP, Quiñones oversaw the shutdown and emptying of the Santa Ynez Reservoir in the Pacific Palisades during brushfire season. The water source was empty when the inferno broke out this week
At a press conference this week, Quiñones said firefighters ran out of water in the Palisades due to low pressure in the system, because they were using water faster than it was being replenished.
A well-connected former LAFD senior officer told DailyMail.com that lack of water was already a 'common' problem, exacerbated by DWP failing to fix cutoff fire hydrants.
'Yearly, the fire department goes out and checks every hydrant,' he said.
'For my entire career we would do this once a year then send in a report to our Hydrant Unit with all the problems we encountered. Year after year the same hydrants that had problems were not fixed.
'One example that comes to mind were the hydrants by Palisades High School on Temescal Canyon. They were dry many times we checked them. DWP knew they had problems and it would take months to fix them.
'It's a City-wide known problem with DWP.
'Last year the yearly hydrant checks were given back to DWP because the firefighters literally are too busy on calls.
'I would be willing to bet DWP didn't do this. I would love to see if they have the documents.'
The city maxed out its budget to 'attract private-sector talent', hiring Department of Water and Power (LADWP) CEO Janisse Quiñones on a $750,000 salary in May
Many have complained about LA Mayor Karen Bass being AWOL in Africa, to fire hydrants running out of water and electricity to power cables being left on to fuel the flames. (Pictured: Bass and Gavin Newsom touring the Palisades Wednesday)
Flames from the Palisades Fire burn through a residential building on Sunset Boulevard amid a powerful windstorm on January 9, in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles
LADWP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A current senior LAFD official also told DailyMail.com that some hydrants in the Palisades were not working when desperate firefighters tried to use them this week, and that they had not been fixed because of budget cuts by LA Mayor Karen Bass.
DailyMail.com exclusively obtained a memo to LAFD 'top brass' sent on Monday January 6, the day before the Palisades Fire began, revealing demands from Bass to cut the department's budget by a further $49million, on top of $17.6million of cuts already voted on by the city council.
The Los Angeles Daily News previously reported that the city's overall spending on its fire department increased by $53million in the fiscal year 2024-25 which runs to this July, but that $7 million of their budget was put in a separate fund for personnel while pay negotiations were still being hashed out, leading to the $17.6million accounting shortfall.
Department veterans told DailyMail.com that the net effect of the budget machinations has meant less firefighters on the ground for years.
The under-fire LADWP was only just recovering from a series of major scandals, including in 2022 when its former General Manager David Wright was sentenced to six years in federal prison for bribery.
Wright took bribes from lawyer Paul Paradis to help secure a $30million, three-year, no-bid LADWP contract for the lawyer's company, according to federal prosecutors.
Compounding the corruption, Paradis was also taking nearly $2.2million in illegal kickbacks from a complex scheme where he simultaneously represented LADWP and residents suing the department over a billing debacle.
DWP implemented a new billing system in 2013 that inaccurately inflated utility bills, sparking class-action lawsuits.
Paradis represented the city as Special Counsel, but was simultaneously representing claimants in the billing debacle, and colluded to get a favorable payout for himself and clients. He was sentenced to three years in prison in 2023.
