After almost 100 years of delivering water to the San Fernando Valley, the Elsmere Canyon Tunnel is in need of repair.

Although no one can actually see the tunnel since that portion of the First Los Angeles Aqueduct is contained underground, work must be done to install a lining inside it.

Recent work has already been done to repair its buckling floors and damaged walls, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said.

Darlene Battle, manager of media and community relations for the department, contacted The Signal Wednesday to explain why the department sent a letter last week to the local conservation authority, requesting that owners of property affecting the tunnel quit their claim to the property.

In order to begin work installing the lining, and since trucks are much bigger than they were a century ago, the tunnel entrance has to be widened in order to accommodate them.

Specifically, the department wants to install a lining of “densified shotcrete” to prevent water from getting out of the tunnel and to keep oil from getting inside it. For that work, the department must use larger vehicles and set up blowers, Battle said.

Basically, the department needs a bigger working area and that’s what prompted last week’s letter to the conservation authority.

The city of Los Angeles owns two easements in Elsmere Canyon from the city of Santa Clarita to construct, operate and maintain the aqueduct.

When department planners and surveyors looked at the land and then looked at the property records, however, they found what appears to be an error in map-rendering.

They discovered that the aqueduct’s actual alignment does not fully coincide with the existing easements and property records.

“In looking at the property records we need for the easement, we found out that the easement we have is not properly aligned with the aqueduct,” Battle explained. “The property records show that the easement is in a slightly different location than where it actually is.

“It doesn’t coincide with the actual location of the tunnel,” she said. “We’re not sure why it’s slightly off.”

Last week, city planners were left scratching their heads, trying to figure out what department officials had in mind when they asked owners of the property affecting the tunnel to give up their claims to the land.

The request came in the form of a letter tabled Dec. 6 at a meeting of the Santa Clarita Watershed Recreation and Conservation Authority.

In a letter submitted this week to The Signal by James McDaniel, chief operating officer in charge of water for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, McDaniel apologized for any confusion the tabled letter may have caused.

In his letter, he explains: “The request was submitted for two reasons. 1) The location of LADWP’s First Los Angeles Aqueduct, which passes through Elsmere Canyon, does not coincide with its existing easements, and LADWP would like to correct this. 2) LADWP is seeking to expand the entrance to Elsmere Tunnel for maintenance requirements.”

The Los Angeles water department requires a “staging area” at the tunnel repair site that would meet safety standards, Battle explained.

In order to begin the work, the department wants to divest its existing easements and acquire new ones that coincide with the aqueduct’s actual location.

It also wants to buy a larger area (200 by 500 feet) between the two easements in order to widen the tunnel’s entrance.