Local advocates work with agencies to devise way to capture and store more rainwater

From the Los Angeles Daily News, this commentary by Ruth Galanter that describes what forward-thinking water advocates & agencies are doing to increase Southern California’s water supply:

 For generations, government policy has been focused on getting rid of rainwater, treating it as wastewater rather than as a renewable resource. Local building codes generally require that buildings have drainage systems to get rainwater off the property so that it can’t undermine the buildings or become stagnant and breed diseases. Local flood-control agencies and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have spent enormous sums building concrete channels to hasten the rainwater’s flight to the ocean.

That’s the bad news. But there is actually also good news.

Thanks largely to pressure from community and environmental activists, there are many examples of attempts to conserve rainwater and floodwater. Sepulveda Basin is a recreation area much of the year, but its primary function is as a flood-control basin holding water until there is room for it in the concrete channels that will eventually carry it away. The freshwater marsh next to the Ballona Wetlands holds and cleanses local runoff from Westchester and Playa Vista and serves as home for many species of birds.

But the most spectacular reversal of generations of wasteful government policies is still to come. Thanks largely to Andy Lipkis of TreePeople and Dorothy Green of every water organization you can think of, a remarkable array of government agencies is preparing to reverse course. Instead of building more storm drains in Sun Valley and removing floodwater, the sanitation agencies of the city and county, the DWP and the Corps of Engineers are preparing to construct holding facilities, possibly in some of the former quarries, to retain what rainwater we get.

Get the full story from Ruth Galanter and the Los Angeles Daily News by clicking here.

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