Posts tagged Urban Runoff
5 Ways To Make Your Home Water-Friendly
Jan 18th
When urban runoff from millions of homes in LA City comes together, whether it’s from wasteful practices or natural rainfall, it can end up carrying trash, debris, oil, grease, fertilizers and other toxic chemicals, in addition to bacteria and viruses, into our local waterways. Clearly, this has a huge impact on our local environment and the quality of our water. For this reason, legislation on Low Impact Development [LID] has set out to make new home developments and redevelopments take greater care in how they use and dispose of water and runoff.
But even if you’re not tackling a new construction, there are many different small scale—and fun—ways to help make your home more water friendly. By choosing or combining any of the five examples below, anyone can help to reduce urban runoff and increase household quality and savings!
1. Rain Barrels & Small Cisterns
Depending on your home, installing a rain barrel can be relatively easy and inexpensive way to get into rainwater harvesting. They work by directing runoff from your roof into catch-barrels, potentially saving up to 1000 gallons per year of free water, or more, with a 55-gallon barrel. That’s equal to a month worth of showers per person that More >
Learn How To Install Your Rain Barrel at Home- Watch Our Do-It-Yourself Installation Video!
Sep 16th
With the success of last year’s L.A. Rainwater Harvesting Program and the public’s continued interest, we thought an instructional video about how to install a rain barrel at your home would be helpful! Watch our step-by-step guide to find out what materials to use, why choosing the right location is important, how to connect your downspout to the rain barrel, and more! Visit the L.A. Rainwater Harvesting Program’s website to see a check-list of the tools used in the video and even request a free “Do Not Drink Rainwater” sticker. Where can you buy a rain barrel you ask? The website also provides information on distributors in the LA area.
If you’re still contemplating whether or not to install a rain barrel, here are some benefits to harvesting rain.
Benefit 1: By capturing rainwater, you help reduce the runoff reaching our local waterways. A typical home in Los Angeles directs 9,600 gallons of water through its downspouts. This water has the potential to collect many pollutants on its journey through our local creeks and rivers to the ocean.
Benefit 2: Saving energy is saving money! The State of California Energy Commission reported that water-related energy consumption in California accounts for nearly 20% of the State’s electricity. One More >
The Riverdale Green Street Project: Ribbon Cutting & Neighborhood Celebration on 9/29
Sep 28th
Who among us hasn’t experienced the joy of planting a seed, nurturing the seedling and proudly watching it blossom into a young tree or flowering shrub. And so it goes with ideas. An idea is planted, nurtured and supported, and in time, that idea grows into a movement that positively changes lives and neighborhoods.
The City’s Stormwater Program is undergoing a similar transformation with new ideas for how to responsibly manage rain flows at the neighborhood level. So come join us as we unveil one of these projects that embody this new vision and approach.
The Elysian Valley’s Riverdale Green Street Project will celebrate its recent completion on Wednesday, September 29 with a ribbon cutting, and you are invited! For more information on the time and location of the event, click here for a downloadable flyer.
For decades, runoff from storms was viewed as a liability; a community danger that needed to be diverted to storm drains as quickly as possible to avoid flooding and damage. Sadly, the runoff was often times contaminated with a wide array of pollutants ranging from pet waste to trash to used motor oil, and this runoff flowed untreated through our creeks and rivers, sending a toxic stew to More >
Taking the Boo out of Bacteria
Oct 29th
You can’t see it but it’s there, hiding out, just waiting for you in the storm drain. It’s not a ghost or a scary monster, although it is certainly frightening.
It’s bacteria.
Unlike other stormwater pollutants such as oil and litter, bacteria cannot be seen with the naked eye. While most environmental microorganisms are part of a natural healthy ecosystem, there is a small percentage of them, found in dog waste and bird droppings, that threaten the health of our environment. And, because animal waste is, unfortunately, prevalent in our cityscape and can be easily broken down by rain and picked up by excess water flowing off of yards, bacteria are often found lurking in our rivers, creeks and lakes. When these harmful microorganisms find their way to our coastline, authorities are forced to close beaches.
As you may know, we have two water drainage systems in Los Angeles, one for wastewater (sanitary sewage system) and one for stormwater (regional storm drain system). Wastewater from our homes (showers, sinks, toilets, etc.) is treated before it is released back into the environment. Harmful bacteria are removed in the process. However, this is not the case with stormwater, which travels untreated through our regional waterways More >
El Nino-He’s Back…
Oct 29th
In July, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists announced the return of El Niño, a climate phenomenon with significant influence on global weather. Occurring, on average, once every two to seven years and typically lasting 12 months, El Niño is the warming of central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean waters. Generally, an El Niño event will produce increased rainfall across the east-central and eastern Pacific and drier than normal conditions over northern Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The phenomenon was first recognized by South American fishermen who noticed unusually warm Pacific Ocean waters occurring near the beginning of the year. Because it typically happened around Christmas time, it was given the Spanish name El Niño meaning “the Little One.”
Here in Southern California, El Niño’s creepy characteristics have typically included multiple menacing winter storms with the potential to cause severe flooding and mudslides. Additionally, the threat of major ocean pollution here in Los Angeles is very real in an El Niño year. “Even on the driest day here in LA, 10 million gallons of urban runoff flows through our rivers, creeks and lakes,” states Enrique C. Zaldivar, director of the Bureau of Sanitation. “During one heavy rainstorm the quantity of More >
California Beach Pollution Still on the Rise
Aug 3rd
Information taken from LA Times article: California beaches face a rising tide of pollution, study finds by: Amy Littlefield
The National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) reports a 4% increase in beach pollution violations from 2007-2008.
According to the NRDC report, which collects data through the Enviromental Protection Agency, 10% of water samples at California beaches last year contained more human fecal bacteria than the state allows, creating health and sanitary issues for all beachgoers.
Bacteria can flow into beach water from sewage accidents such as the spill that forced closures in Long Beach on Monday, but also through stormwater flowing through urban areas. The “urban runoff” pick ups animal waste, fertilizer, motor oil and other contaminants that are dumped into the ocean through our untreated waterways.
Although researchers linked 9% of contamination to sewage and 3% to storm water, the vast majority (81%) came from unknown sources
These high bacteria levels lead to sickness and beach closures at some of the most popular tourist destinations in Southern California.
For more information on beach water quality, be sure to check out Heal the Bay’s Beach Report Card.
