A century ago, Los Angeles built one of the most sophisticated urban flood control systems in the world. But in recent days, that system has sent billions of gallons of water into the ocean, a devastating outcome for a state weathering a crippling drought.
Stormwater runoff flows into the ocean at Santa Monica State Beach in Santa Monica, Calif., Jan. 10, 2023.
Now, the county is embarking on a radical and risky experiment to see if it can increase supply in a different way: a $300 million-per-year program that would build hundreds of small water capture projects over the next 30 to 50 years that could eventually retain as much water as the mountain dams. The drought of the last few years has left reservoirs depleted across the state, burned forests, fallowed farm fields, brown urban lawns, barren ski slopes and disappearing lakes. The crisis on the Colorado River adds to the worries.
Grabbing more uncaptured water from rivers may not be easy since almost all of it is dedicated to support habitat for plants and wildlife as required by regulations and court orders, he said. The state’s uncaptured water lies in two principal areas: 65% of it is in the wild and scenic rivers of the northern coast, and another 30% flows from the Sacramento Delta.
Managing storms is labor intensive and requires skilled intervention. Take, for example, the Los Angeles River, which keeps crews in motion around the clock during big rains. Voters approved $2.7 billion in 2014 for dam expansions that will create 2.8 million acre feet of additional storage capacity, one of the largest efforts to increase reservoirs in decades. Construction is due to start this year, though critics assert the state has slow-footed the program.
The program piled up money with limited construction in the early years. Pestrella, the public works chief, said activity has picked up in the last year and now $400 million in projects have been funded, out of about $1 billion in taxes that have been collected. Pestrella acknowledged that there were challenges, saying, “The governance of water is always bumpy.” But he added, “The program looks good to me.”
“It isn’t new water if it would have entered the system somewhere else,” he said. Another question, he said, is how much of the water captured in new wells will actually filter down into the aquifer.
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