Insurance Pays Off as Altadena Water Company Rebuilds Fire-Damaged Reservoir

Nearly 18 months after the Eaton Fire swept through this foothill community, one Altadena water company that kept its systems running during the blaze is putting shovels in the ground to rebuild what the flames took.

Rubio Cañon Land and Water Association, a nonprofit mutual water company that has served Altadena shareholders since 1886, plans to break ground Wednesday on a more than $2 million restoration of the Maiden Lane Reservoir at 2663 Maiden Lane. The reservoir was damaged in the January 2025 fire.

The funding comes largely from insurance proceeds through JPRIMA, a statewide joint powers authority that Rubio Cañon said it helped establish, according to a press statement announcing the ceremony.

The insurance backstory stretches back nearly two decades.

In 2007, the Association of California Water Agencies stopped providing pooled insurance coverage to mutual water companies statewide, according to an AB 656 legislative fact sheet, leaving small systems to find coverage on the open market. Rubio Cañon was among 14 mutual water companies in Kern, Los Angeles, and Riverside counties that responded by co-founding the California Association of Mutual Water Companies, known as CalMutuals, according to the press release.

CalMutuals then established JPRIMA, which now covers more than 600 water systems across California, the press release said.

When the Eaton Fire struck on January 7, 2025, all three of Altadena’s mutual water companies — Rubio Cañon, Lincoln Avenue Water Company, and Las Flores Water Company — were fully insured through JPRIMA, according to the association.

That coverage is now funding the rebuild.

The association said it has also allocated additional funds to upgrade and modernize supporting infrastructure beyond the reservoir itself. General Manager Lisa Yamashita-Lopez, who also serves as president of CalMutuals, and Board President Janet Fahey are leading the project, according to the press release.

Wednesday’s ceremony also honors the water operators and outside mutual aid personnel who kept Rubio Cañon’s system pressurized in the aftermath of the fire. A February 2025 post-fire recovery briefing from Altadena’s mutual water companies noted that Rubio Cañon’s water system was fully pressurized as of January 2025.

Rubio Cañon is owned entirely by the residents it serves — roughly 9,600 people across more than 3,140 connections in the central and eastern portions of Altadena, according to the association’s website. A five-member board of directors governs the 140-year-old company.