HTLA- Episode 61: The Future Of Stormwater Capture in LA

Brian De Los Santos  00:00

[water ambi] This is the sound of billions of gallons of rainwater rushing out to sea at Ballona Creek. After that series of storms kicked off 2023, concrete river beds across the county were swollen with rain.

Bruce Reznick  00:23

A typical storm in LA County can get about five to ten billion gallons of water. It's a lot of water in a region where we import most of our water- about 60% county wide.

Brian De Los Santos  00:34

[music in] But about 80% of that precious stormwater- It gets diverted toward river deltas like this one, where it's swept away into the ocean. It's hard to describe how frustrating it is to watch so much freshwater just disappear like that. I mean, I've been hearing about the drought in Southern California ever since I was a little kid. Why is LA County so bad at capturing rainwater?

Bruce Reznick  01:04

You know, it's important to understand that we really have to undo a century, or more than a century really, of overdevelopment. Whenever you're putting hardscape, you're changing the natural system. You're not allowing that stormwater to infiltrate and recharge our aquifers and groundwater. We're now having to undo all that and sort of re-engineer solutions to capture and create stormwater.

Brian De Los Santos  01:31

This is How To LA, and I'm your host, Brian De Los Santos. Today, we're gonna unpack how we got into this watery mess. And we're checking out a success story that might be a model for LA's future. A giant stormwater reservoir, hiding underneath a neighborhood park.

Bruce Reznick  01:54

Y- it's so hard. It just takes a while to do these kind [music out] of stormwater projects and get them permitted.

Brian De Los Santos  02:00

This is Bruce Reznick.

Bruce Reznick  02:01

And I am the Executive Director of Los Angeles Waterkeeper. I think you'd probably best describe us as a watchdog group.

Brian De Los Santos  02:08

[music in] So Bruce, talk to me about the current state of stormwater capture projects in LA.

Bruce Reznick  02:14

The City of LA started to get really serious about 20 years ago. And then four years ago, we passed Measure W, the Safe, Clean Water Program. [Brian: Mm hm.] Over a billion dollars has been committed. It's just taking time to build.

Brian De Los Santos  02:28

Several stormwater projects have been completed, and many others are underway. Bruce says that even though it's a slow process, these projects are making a difference.

Bruce Reznick  02:39

We still need to be doing better. But you know, it- it's all going to make a dent. With those first few rounds of projects, we can capture another about 400 million gallons, again, out of you know 5 to 10 billion for a storm like the one we just had. But you know, if we can start doubling, tripling where we're at now, that starts to be a meaningful source of water. The reality is we have 10 million people in LA County and lots of businesses, and we all should be doing whatever we can because we are going to be in a water crisis for a while. I mean, we can talk about whether the drought's over or not. But it's just the new normal. We're gonna have longer, drier periods, followed by sort of wetter wet. And the best way to address that is through these things like stormwater capture. And it's gonna take all of us to do that, at the home level, at the business or commercial level, all the way up to more regional projects with Measure W. [music out]

Brian De Los Santos  03:42

So I want to talk about one of those regional projects to really get a sense [music plays in background] of what's involved here. We're hitting up Franklin D. Roosevelt Park- [park ambi] 'Rose' as the kids call it. [audio clip: kid talking- "Stormwater what?" (Erin Stone: "Stormwater capture.") "Rain?" (Erin: "Yeah.") "Oh, Wow."]

Erin Stone  03:59

This park now captures all that water. [kid: Ohhh.]

Brian De Los Santos  04:02

And we're doing it with LAist climate reporter, Erin Stone.

Erin Stone  04:06

That's why they renovated everything because they had to tear it all up. [kid: Ohh.]

Brian De Los Santos  04:09

Underneath the soccer fields and playgrounds in this cute neighborhood park, there's a massive filtration system that can capture millions of gallons of stormwater.

Steve Frasher  04:17

When you look at the soccer field at Franklin D. Roosevelt Park, try to imagine that underneath is a hidden chamber. Kinda looks like a little Fort Knox down there. There's also uh, a small gallery underneath the skate park [music in background] that is a new feature to the park.

Brian De Los Santos  04:31

This is Steve Frasher, a public information officer with County Public Works.

Steve Frasher  04:35

I get to work with the engineers that design and implement these projects. It's, it's like working in a building full of Bill Nye.

Brian De Los Santos  04:43

Steve says this park is a great example of what the future of LA stormwater capture could look like.

Steve Frasher  04:49

Right now, stormwater delivers about a third of the water needs for LA County. [music in] The goal is to eventually get to about two-thirds of water need and really reduce the amount of water that we need to import from outside of the area. This park received about 2.4 inches of rain with the uh, atmospheric river rains. That translates into about one and a half million gallons. It would serve about 36 people for an entire year. Instead of flowing into the storm drains immediately, it flows into these underground galleries. Without those galleries, if all the rainwater fell on this area, it would just flow into the storm drains with nowhere to go except out to the creek and into the river and out to sea. Multiplying these kind of water capture opportunities across the county, which the Safe, Clean Water Program is trying to do, then it really makes a cumulative difference.

Erin Stone  05:46

I'm curious because you know, we're not gonna have those same seasons that we used to have where it's like, you know- I remember back in 2005, when we had a similar storm than we had this year. Back in 1996, I remember that. You know, we could kind of expect 'em maybe five to seven years, seven to 10 years. But it sounds like we really don't know. Things are just gonna get a lot less predictable. [music out] And I know that's something water managers are really facing as a challenge. So how do you guys factor that into your calculations on you know, when we hear these great goals about you know, two-thirds of our water supply is gonna be local. Um, but obviously, it has to rain, you know, and we gotta have [laughing] rain for that to happen. So how do you- How do you guys factor in [park ambi] the big questions that we still have when it comes to the climate crisis and just volatility and not being able to predict exactly what it's gonna look like?

Steve Frasher  06:34

It's dealing with an expectation of scarcity. If we have a good water year, that, that's something we're grateful for. But it's not to be expected. That's a nice thing when it happens. But we have to plan for those years of continued scarcity because that's the cycle we're in now. We've had two good storm years in twenty. This isn't going away.

Brian De Los Santos  06:57

I was talking to some experts because we were covering the storm. One of them said you know, the first few rainfalls is just dirty water. We can't really use that. What is the process like for y'all to like, recycle, re-filter and stuff.

Steve Frasher  07:10

There's different characterizations to each storm. The first one we call 'the first flush,' because it picks up all the junk off the street. You get all the, the litter and oils and brake pad dust and things like that. The soil is considerably filtering the, the water in a natural process. And then water that is going to be used for household use will have additional treatment by the, the water suppliers. LA County residents are enjoying stormwater capture out of their tap all the time, and this increases that capacity for our communities throughout the county.

Erin Stone  07:44

LA County has, you know, for years been adding kind of projects like this and it seems like it's, it's increased in recent years. But there's obviously a long way to go. Can you talk to us about some of the, the challenges that the county is factoring in as we see these more volatile, extreme storms when it comes to stormwater capture?

Steve Frasher  08:04

The challenges are the heavy urbanization in the area. The impetus historically was build it quick, build it hard, make it so that commerce can happen, make it so that the floodwaters go safely out to sea. Less thought was given to the impact on communities. And of course, there were economic factors and historic redlining that uh, put communities of color into neighborhoods that were less desirable. The county is very cognizant that that's the legacy that we're dealing with. And the conditions at Franklin D. Roosevelt Park gave us the opportunity to not only build a stormwater capture facility that really helps our stormwater needs in this community and all over the county, [music in] but it also helped us revitalize the park when we put the, the top back on the, on the playfield.

Brian De Los Santos  08:59

One of the cool things that kinda stood out for me being here in this park was how people are so integrated. There's a skating area, a place to play soccer, people are playing dominoes on the chairs and benches. It might not be apparent that this park has a really cool feature underneath it, but they still have all these great facilities that they seem to be enjoying.

Steve Frasher  09:19

Yeah in talking to the community and planning this project, the agreement was you know, if we're gonna tear apart your park to insert these galleries underneath it, it's going to be a much better park when we put it back together for you.

Aria Hendrix  09:30

Yeah, it used to be pretty bad, yeah. Name's Aria Hendrix and we're in HP, I think? I used to take the train and go to school, so it was, it was definitely a lot different than like- This wasn't here. They redid the skatepark. That's the reason why we came here. So.

Evan Jacoby  09:42

What we're doing the story about- They put a water capture system in here. [Aria: Okay.]

Brian De Los Santos  09:48

That was producer Evan Jacoby.

Evan Jacoby  09:49

Underneath the soccer field, underneath the skate park. [Aria: Nice.] [Erin Stone: Catch that rain that we (Aria: Yeah, yeah, yeah.) just had.] [Aria: What do they do with it? Like re-use it or something? Uhh...] Exact- You're, you're probably [Aria: Okay.] drinking it, like- [Aria: Is that a bad thing or-] [Erin and others laughing: No! It's good! It's good!] [Aria: Okay.] So the money that went into doing that- They were able to then use that money to also put in this skatepark, put in this workout stuff. I was wondering what you think about that or like [Aria: Oh, for sure.] if you noticed those changes.

Aria Hendrix  10:11

There's people running around like, people were not running around before, like. And especially white people were not here, and they're rebuilding like the housing and stuff. I'm like, Damn! It's nice over here.

Muhammad  10:19

[skateboarding ambi] I think that's pretty cool. They don't have 'em at like other parks or what? [Erin: Not a lot of parks.] For real? Pretty sick. That's pretty sick. My name is Muhammad, and this is uh, Franklin D. Roosevelt Skate Park. But we call it 'Rose' for short.

Erin Stone  10:33

What is your favorite thing about this park now?

Muhammad  10:36

Um, the people, for sure. I love the people. New obstacles, like more modern, you know.

Brian De Los Santos  10:44

Are the proposals usually handled by the offices, like the LA County offices? Or is there opportunity for residents to be like, Hey, you know, we have this park. I'm a community leader. I want to pitch this idea to you guys. What's the best process for people to get their input heard?

Steve Frasher  11:01

Uh, certainly, there's places uh, where residents can engage in this process, be involved. Local chambers of commerce or park and recreation, whether it's the county or your various cities. Working through your county supervisor or your city council members can help open doors to your local planning committee that deals with these kinds of projects on the local level.

Brian De Los Santos  11:22

[music in] It's interesting to see how this stormwater capture feature at this park- It's kinda like a double whammy here. You get the good environmental impact for LA County throughout the region, and you have this South LA community enjoying it and creating space for themselves. Stormwater capture projects like this one are gonna become more and more common in LA. And yeah, the timeline is kinda slow, but it is happening one drop at a time. Special thanks to Erin Stone for hanging out in South LA with us today. If you want to learn more about these projects, and how you can get involved in saving stormwater in your own yard, Erin's article has you covered. We'll have some links in our newsletter, or you can find them over on LAist.com/HowToLA. How To LA is produced by Evan Jacoby, Megan Botel and Victoria Alejandro. Aaricka Washington writes our newsletter. Chris Farias is our social media producer. Our engineer is Hasmik Poghosyan. Megan Larson is our executive producer, and I'm your host, Brian De Los Santos. Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live. [music out]