By Brianna Tong,
Sports Editor
This article is a finalist for a CalMatters op-ed contest.
Growing up in the San Gabriel Valley, I have grown accustomed to seeing empty aqueducts, snowless mountains and, most importantly, droughts.
In California, we have all heard calls by the government to save water in any way we can, cutting shower times, restricting how often we water our lawns and reusing the water we have. But despite our best efforts to save water, the precious lifeblood of our communities, we continue to watch storm after storm pass by with little change in our water supply.
Since the start of the water year on Oct. 1, 29 atmospheric rivers have hit California. In that time, excess water, unable to be absorbed into the soil, has been sent through sewers and the L.A. River into the Pacific Ocean. It is a scandal that a state which suffers from regular droughts has failed to develop a system for the conservation of rainwater, one of our most valuable resources.
Due to the recent rains, the streets I take to school are inundated, and my community’s previously dry drainage ditches have been overflowing with rainwater that runs only to our local river.
This poses the question: How can we conserve rainwater for use during future droughts? There are paved flood control channels across my city designed to direct rainwater away from urban infrastructure to avoid flooding, yet instead of conserving this water, the Associated Press reports, “From the concrete-lined Los Angeles River alone, 58,000 acre-feet of stormwater was sent out to the sea during the recent storms.”
This runs counter to our efforts to conserve water, which is why cities in the San Gabriel Valley like Pasadena focus on nature-based approaches such as Green Streets and Measure W. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, green streets use “vegetation, soil and engineered systems to slow down and purify stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces.”
In this way, rainwater is captured instead of going directly into sewer systems that lead to rivers and the ocean. Measure W levies a small tax on parcels located in Los Angeles County, earmarking the money for projects to collect and recycle rainwater for future use.
According to the Los Angeles Times, in L.A. County “only about 20% of the runoff will be captured” out of the estimated 24 trillion gallons of rainwater the state has received this year. Dawn Petschauer, Pasadena’s Stormwater Program Administrator, promotes programs to inspire people to find ways to capture as much water as possible to help reduce the harsh impacts of droughts.
“To me, the most important thing about the big water year is reminding the people in the community that there are opportunities to collect water and natural resources,” Petschauer said. “If we don’t snatch them, we’re going to be back to where we were a few years ago.”
State and local governments can fund these programs, but the problem of water conservation is not entirely a matter of money. It is also the public’s lack of will to find ways to conserve water and to create a more sustainable environment. Water conservation is an issue that you and I must address today.
Water is essential to life; without it, there is no you and I. The next time you see the streets you take to work and school flooded with rainwater runoff, remember that together we must act to conserve water as though our lives depend on it, because they do.