Fact: Southern Californians conserve more water per capita than any other region in the state. Forget about the visions of swimming pools and golf courses — we are leaders in water conservation.
But there is more to making the most of water supplies than using less. We also need to capture more.
Stormwater — a fancy word for the rain pouring outside — is a local water supply that we can make better use of by capturing it before it runs through our streets and out to the ocean. We need to capture it, save it and use it when we go through dry spells.
Water resource managers, conservation groups, local governments and leading engineers throughout typically parched Southern California know how to make the most of what we’ve got when it comes to our water supply.
Innovative stormwater projects have been implemented throughout the Southland, and about 10 percent of our water supplies come from stormwater each year. But, we can do better. In fact, with the right infrastructure, we can double that number.
So, while we work to better secure our imported water supplies from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and the Colorado River, concurrent attention also needs to be paid to local water supply options that hold great potential — like stormwater.
It’s a basic idea: When it rains, we need to be able to capture that water, store it and then use it later. Today, about half the water from rain that could be used to replenish groundwater basins and increase local water supplies ends up turning into polluted runoff.
This works out to billions of gallons of stormwater going to waste because we don’t have enough stormwater capture systems in place to recharge our underground aquifers.
Capturing this stormwater will give public water agencies access to additional, local water supplies that will help meet the demands of a growing population and provide emergency local supplies to help offset future droughts or disruptions of our imported supplies.
It will also reduce the amount of polluted runoff that flows through our rivers and streams, ultimately out to the ocean often leaving our beaches unfit for use in the days following a rain.
Stormwater capture can take many forms, from the individual installing a rain barrel on his or her property to water the garden, to a neighborhood that uses landscape design to prevent flooding and even to a water agency banking this water in a surface reservoir or infiltrating it into a groundwater basin to save it for a future dry period.
No matter what the scale, capturing stormwater is a viable, cost effective and environmentally responsible.
Although we still need to make our imported supplies more reliable, expanding efforts to increase stormwater capture will play an essential role in the future of Southern California’s water supply.
We’ve made progress and have seen a number of successful stormwater projects put in place but we need to continue to explore and develop diversified local options to help fulfill our regional water needs.
Stormwater capture has long been a priority for the Southern California Water Committee (SCWC), flood control districts and groundwater management agencies.
Using stormwater to increase local water supplies will take foresight, collaboration and commitment from our local, regional and statewide leaders.
That is why SCWC recently launched “Pump Up the Volume,” a stormwater education and outreach program aimed at highlighting the need for investment in this local source of water.
In conjunction with SCWC’s Stormwater Task Force, the “Pump Up the Volume” program is working with our partners to identify stormwater management projects and potential funding opportunities.
We encourage you to learn more and become part of the solution. Learn more at www.socalwater.org.