E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

LA to Harvest Rain off Residences
Still more ways to make some people feel good by spending your money.
As Southern California's traditional water supplies diminish under a variety of pressures, all that runoff sheeting across sidewalks and roads into the maws of storm drains is finally getting some respect.

"This isn't wastewater until we waste it," said Noah Garrison, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council who co-wrote a 2009 paper on capturing and reusing storm water.
Isn't the rainfall sort of seasonal? Where will they store January's runoff until July's demand?
The report concluded that the region could increase local supplies by an amount equal to more than half of Los Angeles' annual water demand by incorporating relatively simple water-harvesting techniques in new construction and redevelopments. These include installing cisterns and designing landscaping to retain runoff and let it seep into the ground.
I wonder if that will have an effect on mudslides?
Los Angeles is poised to adopt an ordinance that takes a step in that direction. Most new and redeveloped commercial, industrial and larger apartment projects would have to be designed to capture the runoff generated by the first three-quarters of an inch of rain. New single-family homes would have to install a rain-harvesting device, such as a rain barrel or a hose that diverts water from gutters to landscaping.
More jobs! For bureaucrats.
Google "catalog rain barrel". They cost $15-$100 and require basic handiman skills to install. I'd recommend getting a small pump. Connect a standard pierced watering hose to the end of the downspout and the second requirement is taken care of. There is the inspector who'd need to be called when you're done to sign off on it, but for new construction and redevelopments the inspector would have to come out anyway. It's about time the wise men of Los Angeles started acting like they ruled over a desert area -- cisterns go back millenia, and pierced hoses for over a century.
But the proposed rules would save only a fraction of the city's runoff. "If we're able to convince people to do it on their own, there's so much more" that can be captured, said Los Angeles Public Works Commissioner Paula Daniels. "The really important thing to do is unpave and change the texture of Los Angeles."
Like 1848. That was a good year for California, before the gold rush ruined it.
Pooh. Replace the concrete with pierced concrete blocks, and plant groundcovers in the soil filling the holes. In Germany they do driveways in the stuff. Of course, that would cost a medium sized fortune, and California has been functionally bankrupt for a while, but the project is do-able without going back to dirt roads. And, of course, it would ruin the surface for skate boarding.

Posted by: Bobby 2011-01-03
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=313105