VerdeXchange Panel: ‘One water’ integrated resource plan for L.A.; Los Angeles’ leaders are spearheading a collaborative and integrated approach to weaning the region off of imported supplies of potable water

From The Planning Report:

The following TPR article excerpts a panel at the 2009 VerdeXchange Green Marketmakers Conference. Entitled “The Tale of the Water Cycle: Recovering Used Water and Conserving Energy,” the panel features presentations by Adel Hagekhalil, assistant director, City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation; Thomas Erb, director of water resources, LADWP; and Kellene Burn-Roy, senior vice president, Camp, Dresser & McKee Inc (CDM).

Adel Hagekhalil: Water is life. The reason we settled in Los Angeles is because of water. People decided to come to Los Angeles because of the L.A. River, and the city survived because people like Mulholland brought water into Los Angeles. The question that we have before us today is, “Are we running out of water?” I would say that the answer is no, we are not running out of water if we manage it responsibly, sustainably, and effectively.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa unveiled an action plan for our water systems and said, “Our future depends upon our willingness to adopt an ethic of sustainability. If we don’t commit ourselves to conserving and recycling water, we will tap ourselves out.” For Los Angeles, 80 percent of our water comes from somewhere else. At the same time, everyday about 350 million gallons of waste water goes down to the ocean. On a dry day you can see about 100 million gallons of run off from irrigation, etc., that goes down into the Los Angeles River and the ocean. If we have half an inch of rain it joins millions of gallons of water that goes, wasted, down to the ocean. We also have a huge amount of ground water that we can not tap into because of contamination. That is the imbalance that we are talking about.

It is all “one water.” That is really the key here. By dealing with it as one water we get even more water…We are not going to have new water. We have to use the same water.

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