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The Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) suffered a power outage on Wednesday afternoon. The outage was brief, first reported around 2:30 p.m., then resolved within an hour – around 3:30 p.m. Most of the terminals were impacted, and operations such as TSA screenings came to a screeching halt.You cannot scan Real IDs and passports, nor can you do electronic frisking for weapons when your equipment has no power. Go figure.According to FlightAware, by 3:15, there were 140 delays and 64 cancelations. Whether these were a result of the power outage is yet to be revealed. The Los Angeles Department of...

The 230 Kilovolt equipment, which carries high voltage electricity and distributes it to customers in the surrounding area, caught fire, according to a LADWP press release. The fire only affected one portion of the station but power to and from the facility has been shut off while LAFD personnel work to put the fire out, the Department added. Residential and commercial customers across San Fernando Valley are without power and the blackout extends for 15-square miles, according to the LADWP. ... Crews will begin reenergizing affected areas once the fire has been extinguished. Power is expected to be out for...

California water districts large and small are expected to urge regulators on Wednesday to toss out or significantly relax emergency drought orders requiring residents to take shorter showers and let their lawns turn brown. Strict orders remain in place, despite significantly more rain and snow this winter flowing into California reservoirs, easing five years of drought, local water officials say. Continuing to ask Californians to sustain "heroic water conservation efforts" that don't reflect healthier water supplies today could erode the officials' credibility with residents when they're called upon next time to make sacrifices, David Bolland, special projects manager for the...

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES – City Controller Wendy Greuel had harsh words this morning for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, saying it “misled” government officials and the public about a controversial transfer of money to the city’s ailing general fund. Greuel held a press conference at the DWP headquarters at 111 N. Hope St. to present her findings of an audit into whether the department had the capital to make the $73.5 million transfer. Department officials had warned they might not be able to do so after the City Council rejected a proposed rate hike. The audit determined...

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's top executive, H. David Nahai, has resigned from the agency effective immediately, the mayor's office announced this morning. In a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Nahai said he was leaving to take a position as an advisor to former President Clinton's climate initiative. Nahai had served two years as a DWP commissioner before Villaraigosa elevated him to the post of chief executive and general manager in 2007. Ever since, he had been under fire from an array of forces. He drew strong criticism from the head of the powerful International Brotherhood of...

Los Angeles will end use of coal-fired powerThu Jul 2, 2009 4:33pm EDT By Bernie Woodall LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles will eliminate the use of electricity made from coal by 2020, replacing it with power from cleaner renewable energy sources, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said. Consumers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the largest city-owned utility in the United States with 1.45 million electricity customers, will see higher power bills in the fight against climate change, he added in his inaugural speech for his second four-year term as mayor on Wednesday. California does not have any...

LOS ANGELES- Some upgrades to the Department of Water and Power's aging system were shifted from private contractors to costly DWP crews, pushing the price tag up millions of dollars, it was reported. The Daily News reported Tuesday that a DWP review found that using city crews to install trunk lines roughly doubled the cost and the length of time it would have taken private workers to complete the project. For instance, a private contractor bid $6.2 million to install a 42-inch pipeline beneath Burbank Boulevard and White Oak Avenue, a project estimated to take 250 days. When the International...

Another L.A. blackout by Pure Coincidence - Blackouts or Blackmail? Link for cartoon NOT SHOWN: http://cagle.msnbc.com/news/Blackout/blackoutgifs/wright.gif An electricity blackout was reported today Monday Sept. 12 affecting major portions of the City of Los Angeles. The blackout was attributed to a hook-up error by L.A. Department of Water and Power utility crews http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050912/ap_on_re_us/la_power_outage Curiously, the blackout occurred exactly one week after a Field Opinion Poll was released on Sept. 5 showing that public opinion was divided on Proposition 80, which would re-monopolize electricity in California. About one third would vote yes, one third no, and another third are undecided on the...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California, armed with what it calls hard, new evidence of rampant power market manipulation, handed federal regulators on Monday the names of about 60 energy companies it alleges were behind the state's 2000-2001 energy crisis. Loretta Lynch, a member of the California Public Utilities Commission, told Reuters a 1,000-page final report on the crisis filed Monday at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission names "almost 60 companies that participated in gaming our energy market." The crisis, triggered by a badly flawed attempt to open the electric industry to competition, cost California billions of dollars, bankrupted the state's...

<p>SACRAMENTO (AP) - The state Senate, in a fiery two-hour debate that stirred old passions about rolling blackouts and price manipulation by now-bankrupt energy traders, confirmed the nomination Monday of 76-year-old S. David Freeman as the state's top energy chief.</p>

<p>Sacramento -- The chairman of a Senate committee investigating California's dysfunctional energy market says the Los Angeles public power system may have falsified documents to counter charges that it helped manipulated the market two years ago.</p> <p>The surprise allegation came during a hearing Tuesday in which another key player in the state's energy deregulation scheme -- Enron Corp. -- was accused of destroying electronic documents it gave to the committee.</p>

<p>The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power profited from a trading scheme that bounced energy across the state and ultimately forced taxpayers to pay a nearly fourfold increase in the cost of the power, according to a 40-page transcript of energy traders' conversations unveiled on Thursday.</p>

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - A November 2000 e-mail about Enron-style energy trading tactics is likely to trigger a legislative probe into whether the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power engaged in such activities.</p> <p>On another front, state senators will put off a Monday vote to confirm S. David Freeman as head of the state public power authority until lawmakers learn more about his role at the DWP during the electricity crisis.</p>