[ca-gw] L.A. Times article - Los Angeles might require rainwater capture

[Carol Steinfeld]

Berlin has such regulations: No stormwater can leave a site.
Authorities have a formula for prescribing low-impact development and other
techniques for onsite retention.
That is why Germany has produced the likes of Herbert Dreiseitl's
stormwater-cleaning sculptures.

(This L.A. Times writer, Susan, owns a urine diverter and wrote about her
startup experience a couple years ago.)

Carol Steinfeld

On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 11:43 PM, Brock Dolman <brock at oaec.org> wrote:

>  FYI...
> Sounds like a Barrel of fun!!!
> Brock
>
>
> latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rain-barrels1-2010feb01,0,1154413.story
> *
> latimes.com
> **
> Los Angeles might require rainwater capture
>
> Proposed law would apply to new home-building, larger developments and some
> redevelopment projects to prevent runoff from reaching the ocean. A builders
> group has voiced some objection*s.
>
> By Susan Carpenter
>
> February 1, 2010
>
>
> A proposed law would require new homes, larger developments and some
> redevelopments in Los Angeles to capture and reuse runoff generated in
> rainstorms.
>
> The ordinance approved in January by the Department of Public Works would
> require such projects to capture, reuse or infiltrate 100% of runoff
> generated in a 3/4 -inch rainstorm or to pay a storm water pollution
> mitigation fee that would help fund off-site, low-impact public
> developments.
>
> The fairly new approach to managing storm water and urban runoff is
> designed to mitigate the negative effects of urbanization by controlling
> runoff at its source with small, cost-effective natural systems instead of
> treatment facilities. Reducing runoff improves water quality and recharges
> groundwater.
>
> Board of Public Works Commissioner Paula Daniels, who drafted the ordinance
> last July, said the new requirements would prevent 104 million gallons of
> polluted urban runoff from ending up in the ocean.
>
> Under the ordinance, builders would be required to use rainwater storage
> tanks, permeable pavement, infiltration swales or curb bump-outs to manage
> the water where it falls. Builders unable to manage 100% of a project's
> runoff on site would be required to pay a penalty of $13 a gallon of runoff
> not handled there -- a requirement the Building Industry Assn. has been
> fighting.
>
> "The Building Industry Assn. is supportive of the concept of low-impact
> development and has invested a lot of time and energy in educating our
> members on those techniques and advancing those technologies," said Holly
> Schroeder, executive officer of the L.A.-Ventura County chapter of the
> association.
>
> "But when we now start talking about using LIDs as a regulatory tool, we
> need to make sure we devise a regulation that can be implemented
> successfully."
>
> Schroeder said that some building projects, such as those in downtown L.A.
> or areas where the soil is high in clay, would have difficulty with the 100%
> retention rule and that the $13-a-gallon mitigation fee is too high. A
> one-acre building on ground where runoff could not be managed on site,
> Schroeder said, could pay a fee as high as $238,000.
>
> "We're seeking flexibility to reflect the site circumstance," she said.
>
> At the urging of business groups opposed to an earlier draft, the Board of
> Public Works has acquiesced on some points.
>
> "We worked out something with the business community that they can release
> the runoff if they first run the water over a high-efficiency bio-filtration
> system," Daniels said. "In other words, they have to clean it first."
>
> The board also decreased the per-gallon mitigation fee from $20 to $13. The
> mitigation fees would fund public low-impact developments, such as the Oval
> Street project planned for Mar Vista, where 24,000 linear feet of parkway
> will be retrofitted with porous pavement, bio-retention basins and other
> water infiltration strategies designed to capture 2 million gallons of storm
> water that would otherwise flow to the ocean.
>
> The ordinance next moves to the Energy and the Environment and the Planning
> and Land Use Management committees of the City Council, before going to a
> council vote and the mayor.
>
> Daniels said she hoped the ordinance would be approved in the next six
> months and go into effect by 2011.
>
> "I don't want to waste another rainy season," she s*aid.
>
> susan.carpenter at latim*es.com
>
>
> Copyright ©* 2010, The Los Angeles Times*
>
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