There was a time, decades ago, when water agencies in Los Angeles worked pretty much in separate realms. Water supply, floodwaters, and the collection and disposal of dirty water were separate responsibilities. In the late 1990s, however, the Departments of Public Works and Water and Power decided to work together. They began a process of integrated resources planning, working with hundreds of citizen groups, businesses, and other organizations, as well as with other agencies. That process began with the Bureau of Sanitation and culminated in 2006 in a master plan to integrate management of drinking water supply, wastewater, and stormwater as the city grows.

"This effort puts City San at the forefront of comprehensive planning because, by fully educating a cross-section of the community to the problems and tradeoffs that will need to be made, it has built support for a more enlightened approach that has resulted from examining multiple resources together and adopting multipurpose solutions," Dorothy Green observed in her 2007 book. She was one of the first to begin nudging the water powers toward this kind of thinking.

Since 2006, the City has taken steps both large and small--but with cumulatively large potential--to make the most of the water it has. It has strong support from Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, who in May 2008 issued an action plan, Securing L.A.'s Water Supply, with the premise that "the City will meet all new demand for water--about 100,000 acre-feet per year (AFY)--through a combination of water conservation and water recycling." The proposed strategy is an aggressive multi-pronged approach that includes investments in state-of-the art infrastrucure and conservation technology, and expansion of water recycling.

The City now has weather-based irrigation controllers in 44 parks and facilities. It has approved the installation of graywater systems. It is working to expand wastewater storage capacity for reclamation, and has completed a report on alternative street surfacing materials for adoption by the City Council.

Land use practices and engineering guidelines are being revised to improve water supply and treatment. "We've only begun to use the land and its natural processing capacity as BMPs [Best Management Practices]," said Commissioner Paula A. Daniels of the Board of Public Works in the Department of Public Works, who founded the Green Street Committee in May 2007. "The momentum is there."

Greening Streets, Making Parks
The first Green Streets demonstration project was created by the nonprofit North East Trees, on Oros Street. This residential street in the Elysian Valley neighborhood ends at the concrete embankment of the Los Angeles River. Stormwater and runoff from sprinklers and hoses used to stream down the gutter and empty straight into the river through a culvert. Now runoff is captured to remove pollutants, help recharge groundwater supplies, and nourish the little riverside Steelhead Park, created as part of the project.

The sidewalk on one side of Oros Street has been reshaped to allow runoff to percolate into the ground around trees and beside the curb, where grass strips have been replaced with drought-tolerant native plants. The water is cleaned as it passes through the soil, and some flows to Steelhead Park.

The City of Los Angeles Department of Public Works will create another version of the Oros Street project along a block of Riverdale Avenue, which also deadends at the river, with dirty water draining through a culvert. The Coastal Conservancy is providing $500,000.

"We hope to learn from these projects what designs and vegetation work best, what the water quality benefits are, and the volume of water that can be captured," said Daniels. "We hope to have these designs be part of all new capital improvement projects done by the City. "We're making a lot of changes, and the people in the City of L.A. are with us.

Pioneering in Santa Monica
With water shortages looming and water pollution a growing concern, other communities in Los Angeles County are likewise taking steps toward water recycling and stormwater capture. The City of Santa Monica has built an urban runoff recycling facility--the first of its kind in the country--which treats between 300,000 and 500,000 gallons a day of dry-weather runoff that would otherwise empty from stormdrains into Santa Monica Bay. That's 95 percent of total dry-weather runoff, said Neal Shapiro, the City's urban runoff manager. The treated and disinfected water is reused in landscaping and also for flushing toilets and urinals. By so doing, the City offsets two to four percent of its potable water use.

In November 2006, with 67 percent of those voting in favor, the City of Santa Monica passed Measure V, a parcel tax for projects to improve the quality of its urban runoff, increase water conservation and groundwater recharge, and at the same time provide recreational and habitat benefits, on land and in the marine environment. The City depends on clean beaches; they are important to its quality of life and economic wellbeing. It also must meet state water-quality regulations and L.A. County's local runoff regulations, which have become more strict.

Among the City's other innovative projects is the Beach Green (see Green Parking at the Beach) which turns a seldom-used beachfront parking lot into a grassy recreational space while leaving the option of using it for parking when needed. Shapiro would like to see the Beach Green replicated all along the coast in parking lots behind beaches, but it's still in testing stages, has not had a winter yet, he said. "We have to see how it works and how the public likes it."