Heal the Bay Blog

In a time of severe drought, one El Niño isn’t going to solve all our problems. But here’s how cities can prepare to take maximum benefit of what rains do come.

CAPTURING STORMWATER AND OTHER URBAN RUNOFF 

Wasteful: After a storm, as much as 10 billion gallons of water is wasted flowing into the sea from urban runoff. That’s enough to fill 100 Rose Bowls! Even when it doesn’t rain, 10 million gallons of urban runoff flows through L.A County stormdrains each day, picking up pollutants and eventually reaching the ocean without the benefit of any treatment. It’s why many of our beaches, rivers and creeks remain chronically polluted. This pollution along our shorelines is terrible, but the waste of water in a time of extreme drought is equally maddening.

Smart: Capturing that runoff, cleaning it, and using it to augment regional water supplies.

The potential:  Up to 630,000 acre feet per year could potentially be generated by better stormwater capture and reuse in the state, according to estimates by the NRDC. This volume is roughly equal to the amount of water used by the entire city of Los Angeles annually.  Using this water for non-potable uses and groundwater recharge can greatly increase local water supplies.

How to get there: It will take significant resolve and funding, but watershed management plans that prioritize green infrastructure and multi-benefit stormwater capture projects must be embraced. Portland and Philadelphia are doing it, and so can we.

What Heal the Bay is doing: Our policy team is working to ensure stormwater management planning and implementation includes multi-benefit solutions that improve greenspace, beautify communities, and capture water onsite for reuse or recharging groundwater.  Our staff scientists are working with state and local governments to find creative ways to fund stormwater programs. We hope to get funding in place before 2020.

CLEANING UP OUR LOCAL AQUIFERS

Wasteful:   Contaminated plumes continue to expand in aquifers in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys, infringing on and reducing groundwater that is available to greater Los Angeles. Much of our groundwater contamination is due to historic improper handling and disposal of industrial chemicals.

Smart: Removing pollutants from groundwater basins in order to enhance available storage space for stormwater and reclaimed water recharge.

The potential: The city of Los Angeles has the rights to pump up to 87,000 acre-feet of water annually. That’s enough water to meet the demands of the greater L.A. Basin for two months out of the year.

How to get there:  We need to find the funding to clean up our groundwater basins. Investment is necessary to allow for our local aquifers to be used to their fullest extent in the future once we do a better job of capturing runoff and recycling treated runoff

What Heal the Bay is doing: Our advocacy staff supports funding through state bond money and the Metropolitan Water District to help clean up the San Fernando Valley and San Gabriel Valley aquifers. LADWP hopes to have two San Fernando Valley aquifer remediation facilities in operation by 2022.

Improved water supply and improved water quality are inextricably linked. Heal the Bay will continue to advocate for smart projects that help us achieve both goals. The drought will require sacrifice and investment. Let’s just make sure we are investing wisely.

Illustration by Jenny Adams

Kicking off El Niño Week, Heal the Bay staff scientists and program directors have assembled simple answers to the complex questions about what El Niño may bring to your home, our beaches and greater L.A.

What does El Niño mean anyway?

El Niño is a global climate event that occurs at unpredictable, two-to-seven-year intervals. The hallmark of El Niño is more than a year of above-average surface temperatures in much of the Pacific Ocean. This has impacts on weather over most of the world, but can mean more rain for the southwestern U.S. 

The direct translation from the Spanish word means “the little boy.” According to one version of the name’s derivation, Peruvian fisherman noticed a pattern of unusually warmer waters around Christmas time and called it “El Niño” in reference to baby Jesus. Scientists in Peru adopted the name and evolved the meaning when they recognized more intense and irregular changes in climate within seven-year intervals seen throughout the entire Pacific Ocean, not just along the coast of Peru.

What causes an El Niño?

An El Niño is caused by the prolonged warming water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. It occurs alongside Southern Oscillation, which is the change of atmospheric pressure over the eastern and western Pacific Ocean. Because they happen at the same time, El Niño and Southern Oscillation are often referred to as ENSO. Today, scientists use ENSO and El Niño interchangeably, so El Niño does refer to the entire phenomenon.

With a decrease in atmospheric pressure over the eastern Pacific, we also see an associated decrease in the westward blowing Trade Winds along the equator. This allows the warmer waters to travel north, and during heavy El Niños the subtropical jet stream can move north. The subtropical jet stream usually runs over Mexican and Nicaraguan rainforests. If it were to move over the southwestern U.S. this year, we could see heavier rains and a stronger El Niño.

When is it coming?

We will be feeling the effects of El Niño in the late fall/early winter of 2015. We already have experienced some early signs, with unusual stretches of humidity this summer and our thunder storms in July from Hurricane Dolores (warmer oceanic waters help to fuel hurricanes). The effects are expected to diminish in spring 2016.

Will it definitely bring heavy storms?

Experts predict a 95% chance of moderate El Niño conditions to continue into the winter, which may bring rain to California during a few large rain events.  El Niños don’t guarantee rain and can be unpredictable, which is why you probably heard discussion on the matter on-and-off for years without seeing a lot of rain. Some El Niño years have remained dry while others have produced epic rains.

The last major El Niño we saw in Southern California was in 1997-98, and the above average ocean temperatures this summer have mirrored the ones we saw in 1997. As of now, we are seeing predictions of El Monstruo-type storm events this winter.

How much rain are we talking about?

The ocean temperatures suggest that we will see an El Niño that matches, and may even surpass, the strength of the 1997 El Niño, the strongest on record (represented by graph on right). In February 1998, downtown L.A. saw 13.68 inches of rain, which is almost equivalent to a full year’s worth of rainfall seen in only one month. If it does indeed mirror 1997, we could see double the rainfall in Southern California. However, this is all dependent on the wind patterns, which we have yet to see. These uncertainties make El Niño so unpredictable and why we keep speaking in terms of hypotheticals.

What’s a “Godzilla” El Niño?

A Godzilla El Niño refers to an exceptionally strong El Niño that can actually move the subtropical jet stream over California. We have only seen these Godzilla storms in the El Niños of 1982-83 and 1997-98.

What areas in L.A. will likely be hit hardest? 

El Niño events can bring much rain to Southern California, which can result in mudslides, erosion and flooding. Homes located in areas known to be at risk of mudslides will likely be hit hardest–for example, houses built on the side of steep mountains or hills. Also, any areas in L.A. that have storm drains that are clogged by trash and debris could experience flooding in their neighborhoods. If you find a gutter that’s blocked, call the City’s Storm Drain Hotline at (800) 974-9794 so that L.A. Sanitation can remove the debris before the rain hits. (And look out for our blog post later this week on how you can better prepare your home for expected rains.)

If it rains, will it mean the drought is over?

No. California has 43 million acre-feet of water storage in reservoirs, and 75% of that storage is located north of Fresno. The majority of the rains are expected to hit Southern California, and currently our regional infrastructure is not set up to store rainwater or dry weather runoff. The system is designed to move rain water to the ocean as fast as possible. Only 12% of Southern California drinking water comes from locally captured rainwater seeping into our groundwater. It might temporarily relieve drought effects, but it is not the silver bullet answer.

A good analogy is relating the drought to using your credit card: an El Niño winter is like paying off the minimum balance on your credit card. You have temporary relief, but you still have a lot of water debt to pay off from the water you took out before. Our depleted reservoirs require much more water to reach healthy and secure levels.”

Is this a sign of the future? Are storms going to continue to be more intense?

Climate change impacts are already happening now in L.A., and can be intensified in an El Niño year. Impacts from climate change along our coasts include increased storm intensity, ocean temperature increases, changing currents, sea level rise, species range shifts, coastal erosion, and ocean acidification. To make matters worse, a combination of impacts may collide during an El Niño year — such as high tides, sea level rise, storm surges, and inland flooding. The projected inundation could severely impact our freshwater supplies, wastewater treatment plants, power plants, and other infrastructure, not to mention public health and the environment. (See our blog post later this week about how climate change could impact local shorelines in Venice and Malibu.)

I thought rain was a good thing. Why is Heal the Bay worried about it?

Yes, we desperately need rain in our drought-parched state. But rain creates urban runoff — the No. 1 source of pollution at our beaches and ocean.

What is “stormwater capture” and why is Heal the Bay so excited about it?

The L.A. region now imports more than 80% of our water from Northern California and the Colorado River watershed, using enormous amounts of energy and capital to do so. In an era of permanent drought, we simply must do a better job of using the water we already have by investing in innovative infrastructure projects that capture and reuse stormwater instead of sending it to senselessly pollute our seas. Runoff — if held, filtered and cleansed naturally in groundwater basins — can provide a safe source of water for human use.

How does rain create pollution?

Rimmed by foothills and mountains, Los Angeles County is like a giant concrete bowl tilted toward the sea. When it rains, water rushes along paved streets, picking up trash, fertilizer, metals, pet waste and automotive fluids before heading to the ocean via the region’s extensive stormdrain system.

How do stormdrains trash the beach?

With memories of historical deluges on their mind, engineers designed L.A. County’s 2,800-mile stormdrain system in the ‘30s and ‘40s to prioritize flood prevention.  Moving stormwater out to sea quickly was their number one goal. But it also has the unintended function of moving trash and bacteria-laden runoff directly into the Santa Monica and San Pedro Bays, completely unchecked and untreated. An average one-inch storm will create about 10 billion gallons of runoff in L.A. County stormdrains. That’s 120 Rose Bowls’ worth of dirty water.

What does all this runoff to do the ocean and the animals that call it home?

Hundreds of thousands of animals each year die from ingesting trash or getting entangled in manmade debris. Seawater laden with chemicals and metals makes it harder for local marine life to thrive and reproduce.

What about the human health impacts?

Beachgoers who come in contact with polluted water after storms face a much higher risk of contracting illnesses such as stomach flu, ear infections, upper respiratory infections and skin rashes. A UCLA epidemiology study found that people are twice as likely to get sick from swimming in front of a flowing stormdrain than from swimming in open water.

How can ocean lovers stay safe during the El Niño months?

• Wait at least 72 hours before entering the water after a storm 
• Stay away from storm drains, piers and enclosed beaches with poor circulation 
• Go to Heal the Bay’s beachreportcard.org to get the latest water quality grades and updates 

How can I support Heal the Bay’s efforts to make L.A. smarter about stormwater?

• Come to a volunteer cleanup to learn more about stormwater pollution and what can be done to prevent it. Invite family and friends to help spread the word.
• Share information on your social networks and support our green infrastructure campaigns.
• Become a member. Your donation will underwrite volunteer cleanups, citizen data-collection efforts and advocacy efforts by our science and policy team to develop more sustainable water policies throughout Southern California.

 Heal the Bay staff members Nancy Shrodes, Matthew King and Dana Murray contributed to this report.

Yes, we needed last night’s sporadic but intense rainfall. But it left a lot of waste – both literally and figuratively — says Matthew King, Heal the Bay’s communications director.

Sept. 15, 2015 — Welcome to Bay Street, where the trash meets the surf!  

After last night’s deluge, I  took a reconnaissance trip this morning to Santa Monica’s Pico Kenter storm drain, which drains directly into my regular surf spot. As the pictures below attest, there was no shortage of plastic bags, water bottles, fast food packaging, balloons and bits of Styrofoam to be found after the storm. Even if you don’t surf here, it’s a disturbing sight. (Check out the videos at bottom of this post for real-time views.)

During the so-called “First Flush,” trash and toxins that have been accumulating for months on sidewalks, roadways and riverbeds wash into L.A. County’s extensive stormdrain system. After a big storm like last night’s, more than 10 billion gallons of polluted water enters the Bay.

As you read this, more than 70 major outfalls in L.A. County are spewing debris, animal waste, pesticides, automotive fluids and human-gastrointestinal viruses into the sand and sea. Major yuck! This pollution poses human health risks, harms marine life and hurts our $20 billion coastal economy. 

Exposure to this runoff can also make you really sick, most frequently with stomach flu. For that reason, Heal the Bay urges people to avoid water contact at Los Angeles County beaches for 72 hours following rainfall. Recent studies suggest five days would be more appropriate at storm drains like Pico Kenter.

With more tropical heat forecast throughout the week, we’re concerned that beachgoers will jump back into the ocean sooner than advisable. They may be looking to catch a few waves, but could catch a nasty bug instead. So please stay out of the water the next few days!

There’s another equally disturbing aspect to the runoff – it’s a huge waste of water!

Los Angeles imports costly and increasingly scarce water from Northern California and the Colorado River. We now import more than 80% of our water, using enormous amounts of energy to do so.

Stormwater — if held, filtered and cleansed naturally in groundwater basins — could provide a safe, more secure and less costly source of drinking water. That 10 billion gallons of water from an average single storm in L.A. could fill nearly 120 Rose Bowls. That would provide enough water for a city the size of Santa Monica for more than three months.

Our policy team is advocating for multi-benefit infrastructure projects that capture water onsite for reuse or recharging groundwater.  Our staff scientists are working with state and local governments to find creative ways to fund stormwater programs. We hope to get funding in place before 2020. Philadelphia and Portland have done it, and so can we!

Meanwhile, there are steps you can take in your own home to take pressure off an already taxed stormdrain system. Among them:

• Keep trash out of gutters and stormdrains
• Dispose of animal waste and automotive fluids properly
• Limit runoff by curtailing such wasteful practices as hosing driveways and overwatering landscapes. (It’s already illegal to do so in many cities.)

Finally, if scenes pictured above bother you, we’ve got a couple ways that you can help out.

• Volunteer for this weekend’s Coastal Cleanup Day, our biggest volunteer event of the year. More than 10,000 ocean lovers will gather at 50 beach and inland sites to remove debris and learn about what they can do year-round to protect our shorelines.
• Become a Heal the Bay member or make a one-time donation to support our science and policy team’s work to curb plastic waste and hold polluters accountable.
• Join our elite Storm Response Team, a group of committed trash-busters who swarm our most troubled beaches on 24 hours’ notice.