Mark Gold discusses strategies for capturing stormwater in Los Angeles Magazine

Los Angeles County is not set up to leverage rain when it falls. Rather than capture it, most of the rain flows into storm drains and out to the ocean, often picking up harmful substances like pesticides and bacteria that can have damaging effects on humans and aquatic life.

Measure W, the “Safe Clean Water Parcel Tax” passed in November 2018 could change that practice. The measure requires that the City of Los Angeles invest an estimated $300 million annually in water infrastructure projects to increase the state’s local water supply. According to Mark Gold, associate vice chancellor for environment and sustainability at UCLA and leader of the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge (SLA GC), the region needs to start investing in capturing more storm water and recycle it, using the money from measure W towards transportation projects, such as “green streets,” which have “bio filters, infiltration trenches, and French drains, so the runoff can just percolate into the ground really quickly,” enabling the region to use it more effectively.

Read the full article at Los Angeles Magazine.