Rebuilding the LA Basin, The worlds largest Environmental disaster

Not Just for California but other desert communities as well"

Greenspace

Environmental news from California and beyond

January 21, 2010 | 10:21 am

 So much concern over the Three Gorges damn in China as being the world's greatest environmental scar on the earth, when you see the Google earth photos, obviously that's not true.  Many open pit mines scar the earth to a greater extent.  But we need not look the world over, when the biggest environmental catastrophe is right here in California.  The LA Basin designed to shed hundreds of millions of gallons of rain water away each year.  A Waste and a Toxic flurry, see more..

L.A.’s Department of Public Works unanimously approved a draft of its Low Impact Development ordinance last week. The ordinance would require newly constructed homes, larger developments and some redevelopments to capture, reuse or infiltrate 100% of the runoff generated on-site in a 3/4-inch rainstorm or to pay a storm water pollution mitigation fee that would help fund off-site, public LIDs.

Low Impact Development is a fairly new approach to managing storm water and urban runoff that mitigates the negative effects of development and urbanization by controlling runoff at its source with small, cost-effective natural systems instead of end-of-line treatment facilities. Reducing runoff improves water quality and also recharges the groundwater. Board of Public Works Commissioner Paula Daniels, who drafted the ordinance last July, said the new requirements would prevent 104 million gallons of polluted urban runoff from washing in to the ocean.

Under the ordinance, builders would be required to employ rainwater storage tanks, permeable pavement, infiltration swales or curb bumpouts to manage the water where it falls. Builders who are unable to manage 100% of a project’s runoff on site would be required to pay a penalty of $13 per gallon of runoff that was not handled on site -- a requirement the Building Industry Assn. has been fighting.

"The Building Industry Assn. is supportive of the concept of Low Impact Development and has invested a lot of time and energy in educating our members on those techniques and advancing those technologies," said Holly Schroeder, executive officer of the L.A.-Ventura County chapter of the association. "But when we now start talking about using LIDs as a regulatory tool, we need to make sure we devise a regulation that can be implemented successfully."

Schroeder says some building projects, such as those in downtown L.A. or in areas where the soil is high in clay, will have difficulty with the 100% retention standard and that the $13 mitigation fee is too high. A one-acre building on ground where runoff could not be managed on site, Schroeder said, could pay a fee as high as $238,000. "We’re seeking flexibility to reflect the site circumstance," said Schroeder.

At the urging of the many business groups that opposed an earlier draft of the LID ordinance, the Board of Public Works has already acquiesced on some points."We worked out something with the business community that they can release the runoff if they first run the water over a high-efficiency biofiltration system. In other words, they have to clean it first," Daniels said.

The Board also decreased the per-gallon mitigation fee from $20 to $13. The mitigation fees would fund public LIDs, such as the Oval Street project planned for Mar Vista, where 24,000 linear feet of parkway will be retrofitted with porous pavement, bioretention basins and other water infiltration strategies designed to capture 2 million gallons of storm water that would otherwise flow to the ocean.

Approved by the Board, the LID ordinance will now move on to the Energy and the Environment and the Planning and Land Use Management committees of the City Council, before moving on to a council vote and the mayor.

Daniels says she hopes the ordinance will be approved in the next six months and go in to effect by year’s end. "I don’t want to waste another rainy season," she said.

-- Susan Carpenter
Photo: Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times

The Dry Garden: Diverting winter rains from the streets to our flower beds. - Desert Living

This article has been move to:

Making Every Drop Count

Making Every Drop Count

L.A. at Home

Design, Architecture, Gardens,
Southern California Living

The Dry Garden: Diverting winter rains from the streets to our flower beds

November 11, 2009 |  6:30 am

It stands to reason that some of the most progressive environmentalists in Los Angeles work for the Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Sanitation. They are the front line between what we discard and the environment.
Last week we looked at their fight to triage our system for recycling food scraps. This week the subject is their battle to capture rainfall before it enters L.A.’s massive storm drain system.
The bureau, along with a leading Southland water agency, the state Legislature and environmental nonprofit groups such as TreePeople and the Green LA Coalition are all moving to make harvesting rainwater as routine as recycling.
Rain shouldn’t be a pollutant, but as the Los Angeles Basin was steadily developed during the last century, the fields and meadows where the water used to infiltrate into the aquifer was steadily paved.
So, when it rained, it flooded. By the 1930s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began building what is now 1,500 miles of pipes and 100 miles of open channels to catch the water that flowed from our roofs and driveways into the streets and storm drains. This runoff was then fed into the Los Angeles River and Ballona Creek.
To channel that water better, the river and creek also were paved.
The result: On dry days, the Bureau of Sanitation reckons that 100 million gallons of runoff from sprinklers, car washing and the like fall untreated into the Pacific Ocean.
When it rains, that figure skyrockets to more like 10 billion gallons with each one-inch shower. When a typical rain year is over, 120 billion gallons, or enough water to serve a million households a year, will have swept through Greater L.A.’s streets into the Pacific.
Were it fresh water that we were discharging, it would be merely wasteful. But the minute that rain leaves our gutters, downspouts and driveways for the street, it begins picking up motor oil, candy wrappers, dog feces and cigarette butts. By the time it reaches the ocean, fresh rainfall is toxic crud.
Capturing rain is by no means simple, but a sea change in attitude has taken place. As L.A. Board of Public Works Commissioner Paula Daniels likes to say, whereas the 20st century goal was to get rid of water as fast as possible, the challenge of the 21st century is to keep it.

The chronology bears this out. In 2004, Los Angeles voters passed Proposition O, a $500-million bond to clean up the city’s water courses. The screens that began appearing over storm drain openings were part of that initiative. To follow what it’s doing, click here.
Among local water authorities, the Inland Empire Utilities Agency is leading the charge to capture, treat and use storm water as part of its overall water supply.
Among cities, it is no surprise that the ones downstream have led the way. Santa Monica has long required new or significantly remodeled buildings to have rain-capturing percolation pits. This year it began experimental programs capturing street runoff.
Santa Monica’s frustration with the running gutters of its giant neighbor upstream may lessen soon.
“We hope to have a new low-impact development ordinance to the City Council in January,” Los Angeles’ Watershed Protection Program analyst, Joyce Amaro, says. “It’s maybe a little ambitious, but that’s the goal.”
This ordinance will apply to new buildings. But it does not take a construction program to act. For the great mass of us in existing houses, it has never been easier to find out what we can do. Virtually every city in Los Angeles County has a storm water outreach officer. Last month, Los Angeles even expanded its outreach to Facebook with a page for fans of storm water. Free trinkets such as totes and T-shirts are offered, but the eco-dog stuff is no joke. It’s all about poop-scooping.
To capture rain from private homes, Los Angeles has just concluded a trial giveaway of 600 rain barrels in the Ballona Creek area. Most of the big hardware stores also carry them for about $100.
But another effective measure costs less than $10: Simply attaching downspout diverters to redirect rain from driveways and paved surfaces to garden beds. TreePeople has how-to guides for every kind of installation, from large cistern installations to simple gutter pipe attachments. The group also has a number of demonstration gardens.
In Orange County, a new rain garden with a 4,000-gallon underground cistern just opened at the Shipley Nature Center. This not only captures rain but recirculates it as a stream for wildlife. Friends of Shipley ambassador Stephen Engel invites anyone interested for a tour. He says the idea could be adopted to a private garden for a couple of thousand dollars.
The momentum to standardize rainwater capture statewide is also building. In October, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed hundreds of bills in a battle with the Legislature over water and prison policy, one of the bills the he did sign was the Stormwater Resources Planning Act.
Unlike Proposition O, it does not bring new money to the effort to capture storm water. But it is designed to improve investment of existing public funds and to rationalize the patchwork of programs across the Southland into a more coherent policy.
It is the first bill that TreePeople has sponsored since its formation in the 1973. When asked why, TreePeople’s urban systems group manager Deborah Weinstein answered simply: “We want to see a rain barrel become as common as a recycling bin.”
-- Emily Green
Green's column on drought-tolerant gardening appears here weekly. She also blogs on water issues at www.chanceofrain.com.
Photos, from top: Raindrops accumulate on a spider web; an egret cruises Ballona Creek. Credits, from top: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times; Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

How to Capture Rainwater | www.treepeople.org

Great Ideas put into Action 

The lower the maintenance, the easier these systems will get utilized.

• Easy to clean
• Automated or Easy to manage disbursements of the stored water

Grey water systems offer a year-round source of Reclaimed water.  The dependable flow can be integrated into irrigation plans easily.

How to Capture Rainwater

Did you know you can capture rainwater as a valuable resource?
There are many solutions to use at your home or business to help harvest rainwater that falls on your property so it doesn't become wasted runoff.
The water can then either soak down into the soil to recharge (replenish) groundwater supplies. Or you can collect and store the water for irrigating your trees and plants in dry weather.
Although this information was written to assist Los Angeles residents, it can be applied to Southern California and areas beyond.

Why does Los Angeles need to capture rainwater?

As we all know, rainfall is scarce in L.A., and the area's thirst for water is growing. Unfortunately, conventional land development practices – covering the city with hard, impermeable surfaces – leave few places where rain can soak into the ground. More...

What is TreePeople doing to help?

TreePeople's work is about inspiring people to transform their cities into Functioning Community Forests. This is done in part by implementing technologies that help mimic natural water cycles in urban areas. By implementing these "rain-capturing" or "water-harvesting" practices, we are taking steps to solve our area's water issues.
Read more about the benefits of capturing rainwater.

How can you help?

Whether you are a student, a renter or homeowner, or if you are working with a commercial or industrial property, you can begin implementing rain-capturing practices. Working together, we can create a more sustainable Southern California.
TreePeople has compiled information about steps you can take to harvest rainwater. Some are easy and inexpensive. Others require more planning and resources.


How to Capture Rainwater | www.treepeople.org

Finding Water

Los Angeles might require rainwater capture

Proposed law would apply to new home-building, larger developments and some redevelopment projects to prevent runoff from reaching the ocean. A builders group has voiced some objections.

• Related
• 
  
  
  
  Rain barrels and permeable pavement are on LA agenda
• 
  
  
  
  The Dry Garden: Diverting winter rains from the streets to our flower beds

Southern California spends hundreds of millions of dollars to marketing firms, lobbyist and Legislators to try to get more water from the Sacramento Delta Area.
Ideally, they would like Northern California residents to pay for the deliver of this water to Southern California under the myth of repairing levees.
Sometimes they even bribe Northern California with a free reservoir or two.
But when it comes to saving, conserving, or god forbid rationing their local water sources, Southern California is all up in arms.
Don't tell them they live in a dessert, and should live like it. The like to flood the irrigate the orange orchards like a Georgia Peach or water their lawn like they live in Kentucky Blue Grasslands.

But you can only squeeze so much blood out of a turnip, and eventually even Northern California runs dry. Ultimately, it comes down to dollars and cents and some folks recognize that it's cheaper to better manage the local water sources.

Why does a snowflake have to fall in the mountains to water a bush in LA. Why not capture the massive amounts of run-off from LA Urban sprawl, clean it and replenish the local aquifers.

A proposed law would require new homes, larger developments and some redevelopments in Los Angeles to capture and reuse runoff generated in rainstorms.


Susan Carpenter wrote:
The ordinance approved in January by the Department of Public Works would require such projects to capture, reuse or infiltrate 100% of runoff generated in a 3/4 -inch rainstorm or to pay a storm water pollution mitigation fee that would help fund off-site, low-impact public developments.

The fairly new approach to managing storm water and urban runoff is designed to mitigate the negative effects of urbanization by controlling runoff at its source with small, cost-effective natural systems instead of treatment facilities. Reducing runoff improves water quality and recharges groundwater.

Board of Public Works Commissioner Paula Daniels, who drafted the ordinance last July, said the new requirements would prevent 104 million gallons of polluted urban runoff from ending up in the ocean.

Under the ordinance, builders would be required to use rainwater storage tanks, permeable pavement, infiltration swales or curb bump-outs to manage the water where it falls. Builders unable to manage 100% of a project's runoff on site would be required to pay a penalty of $13 a gallon of runoff not handled there -- a requirement the Building Industry Assn. has been fighting.

"The Building Industry Assn. is supportive of the concept of low-impact development and has invested a lot of time and energy in educating our members on those techniques and advancing those technologies," said Holly Schroeder, executive officer of the L.A.-Ventura County chapter of the association.

"But when we now start talking about using LIDs as a regulatory tool, we need to make sure we devise a regulation that can be implemented successfully."

Schroeder said that some building projects, such as those in downtown L.A. or areas where the soil is high in clay, would have difficulty with the 100% retention rule and that the $13-a-gallon mitigation fee is too high. A one-acre building on ground where runoff could not be managed on site, Schroeder said, could pay a fee as high as $238,000.

"We're seeking flexibility to reflect the site circumstance," she said.

At the urging of business groups opposed to an earlier draft, the Board of Public Works has acquiesced on some points.

"We worked out something with the business community that they can release the runoff if they first run the water over a high-efficiency bio-filtration system," Daniels said. "In other words, they have to clean it first."

The board also decreased the per-gallon mitigation fee from $20 to $13. The mitigation fees would fund public low-impact developments, such as the Oval Street project planned for Mar Vista, where 24,000 linear feet of parkway will be retrofitted with porous pavement, bio-retention basins and other water infiltration strategies designed to capture 2 million gallons of storm water that would otherwise flow to the ocean.

The ordinance next moves to the Energy and the Environment and the Planning and Land Use Management committees of the City Council, before going to a council vote and the mayor.

Daniels said she hoped the ordinance would be approved in the next six months and go into effect by 2011.

"I don't want to waste another rainy season," she said.

susan.carpenter@latimes.com