New LADWP Plan Looks to Capture Storm Runoff Amid SoCal’s 4-Year Drought

L A Times ^ | June 25, 2015, 3:00 AM | Monte Morin

[BenLurkin]

It may not rain much in Los Angeles County, but when it does, a single storm can send up to 10 billion gallons of water surging into a vast network of storm channels with a single destination: the Pacific Ocean..

...

After four years of drought, unprecedented restrictions on urban water use and steady increases in the cost of imported water, officials in Los Angeles and other cities are now looking at stormwater runoff as more than just a flood risk.

At a public hearing Thursday, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power will present its Stormwater Capture Master Plan, an initiative that officials say will reduce the city's future reliance on imported water and perhaps address a predicted trend toward heavier, more intense rainfall.

The plan includes three large-scale projects in the San Fernando Valley that would collect rainfall in basins or washes and then slowly feed it into the city's primary underground water source — a process known as aquifer recharge.

...

Currently, the city collects an average of 27,000 acre-feet of rainwater each year. That water is captured in flood control dams and spreading grounds, where it is allowed to filter into the aquifer.

Under the Stormwater Capture Master Plan, the city could collect 100,000 to 200,000 additional acre-feet of rainwater each year by 2035, depending on how aggressively it pursued the plan, officials say. One acre-foot of water is equal to 326,000 gallons, or about enough to supply two households with water for a year.

[skeeter]

Under the Stormwater Capture Master Plan, the city could collect 100,000 to 200,000 additional acre-feet of rainwater each year by 2035

Great. Then the environmentalists will step in and require the collected water be reserved for gradual release to protect some or other minnow species.

Another few billion down the chute.

[W.]

Ha, how many decades short is this realization? And idiots of this mentality run this country. GHUATGROTB.

[SkyDancer]

And don’t you dare have a cistern to capture it.

[norwaypinesavage]

What!!! All this stagnant water, sitting on the earth, is going to EVAPORATE. Water vapor is the most potent global warming gas in the atmosphere. This will add billions of tons of water vapor into the air. THIS MUST BE STOPPED.

[al baby]

I read some where a guy up north got in big time trouble for collecting rain water on his own property Washington sate?

[Pelham]

“Then the environmentalists will step in and require the collected water be reserved for gradual release to protect some or other minnow species.”

Nah, not in the LA River- it’s that concrete ditch you see in a lot in movies. The only thing growing in it are movie sets and the homeless.

[icwhatudo]

“Stormwater Capture Master Plan”

Its called a Dam you idiots!

[Sasparilla]

...And don’t you dare have a cistern to capture it...

Or, even a galvanized garbage can to catch the rain from a gutter downspout for personal use. Welcome to California and other western states.

[SkyDancer]

Yeah, CO taxes you on water you capture because rain belongs to them.

[SkyDancer]

Actually CO and Oregon.

[KarlInOhio]

One acre-foot of water is equal to 326,000 gallons, or about enough to supply two households with water for a year.

That's 446 gallons per household per day. Yikes, do people from LA just turn on the faucet in the morning and let it run all day just in case they feel like a glass of water sometime in the afternoon?

[blackdog]

I collect my rainwater for my gardens. The plants know the difference. Especially new plantings and transplants. I used to collect all my gray water too. That was from sinks and laundry. I had a neighbor rat me out to code enforcement and that was the end of that. My excess rain water after the covered barrels hit the full spill-off runs into my swimming pool.

Tomatoes offer a yield at least 50% better when using rain water to irrigate over chlorinated municipal water. So too do grapes, kiwis, peppers, asparagus, lettuce, and brussell sprouts. Peach and plum trees prefer rain water also. The trick is being handy and discrete enough to artfully plumb it where it needs to go while going un-noticed. I do have regular high pressure buried irrigation for the lawns with back-flow preventers and that makes the code enforcement people happy.

[T-Bone Texan]

The L.A. river figured greatly in the opening and closing scenes of Escape From New York.

Many, many other iconic movies too. Grease, for instance.

[blackdog]

We used to have a house which the kitchen was built over a huge cistern. The home was built in 1866 and the captured rain and snow run-off filled the pit under the kitchen. A hand pump on the sink pulled it up from below. The floor joists had a huge sag in them from the moisture. We did the math once and it held somewhere around 8,000 gallons. A sump pump was put in and kept it empty since about 1955. That was when the county banned consumption of such water and forced wells with lift pumps to be dug / pounded.

[hoosierham]

Nosy neighbors or talkative family members are your biggest hazard.

[G Larry]

If they just decided people were more important than some stupid fish of no consequence, they would have much more water retained.

[Pelham]

There are few other rivers that are so conveniently concrete lined and dry most of the year. And within convenient driving distance of most studios.

[minnesota_bound]

Ancient civilizations were doing this hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Their death came as a result of liberals aka The Hordes.

[21twelve]

Here in Seattle they are on a big push to capture storm runoff and run it through the waste-water treatment facility before dumping it into Puget Sound. One project alone is $1.2 billion.

Meanwhile on the north end of Puget Sound sound, the city of Victoria, Canada, dumps raw sewage directly into the Sound.