Guest View: Increasing storm-water capture is doable

San Gabriel Valley Tribune
By Richard W. Atwater
Posted: 03/30/2011 07:49:21 PM PDT

There are always two sides of a coin. Southern California has been gripped by powerful and fierce storms this year that have wreaked havoc and caused extensive damage in some communities. Drought warnings, mandatory water conservation and rationing may be distant memories, but we should not rest easy. While we've experienced record-breaking levels of rainfall and snowpack in 2011, much of that water can't be physically captured. And that situation brings me to the other side of the coin.

That surplus water, angrily raging through concrete river channels and dumping out into the Pacific Ocean, presents a significant and unique opportunity for Southern California to improve its water supplies and rise to new standards of environmental stewardship. The challenge: Capture that stormwater now, bank it and save it for a future dry day.

Californians have demonstrated a strong commitment to the environmental mantra, "reduce, reuse, recycle." That same principle needs to be applied aggressively to making more efficient use of our finite water supplies.

Capturing and reusing stormwater is viable, cost effective and environmentally preferable.

Approximately 500,000 acre-feet of stormwater is currently captured and recharged into Southern California groundwater basins in an average year. That's enough water to supply 3 million people for a year, or satisfy the water supply needs of San Diego, Anaheim, Riverside, Santa Ana and Long Beach. Read the full article here.