Drought-ravaged L.A. looking to ‘sponge up’ every bit of rainwater
New storm drains built to let rainwater ‘piddle out’ into soil, $1B emergency plan to add more
By Kim Brunhuber, CBC News Posted: Mar 20, 2015 4:39 PM ET Last Updated: Mar 20, 2015 10:20 PM ET
Having grown up in SoCal, I can attest to the fact that it was either drought or semi drought when I lived there…and that was decades ago…
LA was ‘created’ on what was essentially a desert, so no surprise here that this is going on..sometimes it didn’t rain for three years, but then the population was much smaller.
One of the things that could happen if the will was there would be to divert what is called ‘brown’ water (such as from showers or baths) to yards for a bit of irrigation..simple and would recover lots of otherwise wasted water…
Storm drains would be good, but that is a multi-billion dollar job just in LA alone..I can remember as a teen when it rained hard for a few days and every thing was flooded because there were no storm drains..the old school thinking was, it never rains in California, who needs storm drains. so urban and suburban flooding was ‘normal’..luckily for us we had a VW Beetle, which believe it or not, floated, so we could get around…
This little Hail Mary desperation play could serve as a cautionary tale to those of us here who assume that water will always be plentiful, especially in BC…my unsolicited advice, probably worth no more than you paid for it, after seeing what can happen in one lifetime, is to treat this life-giving resource with the respect it deserves..don’t let our politicians sell it off to the highest non – Canadian bidder, and use it ourselves with respect and economy…because you just never know….
Should we share…yes, of course, but judiciously…
Left Over 