Recent storms have helped in keeping drought levels down across Southern California, but some experts say more should be done to collect that water and store it for dryer times.
Los Angeles County voters decided in 2018 to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to do just that. One non-profit watch dog group, Los Angeles Waterkeeper, said only 20 percent of storm water gets captured.
In January, the NBC4 I-Team reported more than 21 billion gallons of storm water that was collected until that point and 100 projects in the works to help the county collect more water.
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The county's Department of Public Works said those numbers have increased.
One of the ways to collect water is using debris basins like the Sawpit Debris Basin in Monrovia.
Public Works said the 2022 to 2023 storm season was the seventh highest rainfall season in the past 150 years. It also said the flood control system performed well with the high storm flows.
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A spokesperson for the county said there are now 126 regional infrastructure projects to capture storm water using $514 million in Safe Clean Water Funding. Twelve of those projects have been completed, and they say the remaining projects are expected to be completed in one to five years.
The county also told the I-Team since Oct. 1, 1.8 billion gallons of storm water have been collected at groundwater recharge facilities, which represents 22 percent of the average storm water capture to date. It says that’s enough water for 43,200 LA County residents for a year.
Compare that to estimates for 2022-2023, which are measured through the end of September 2023, total storm water captured was 204.8 billion gallons. That’s 314 percent of the annual average and enough water for 5,027,200 LA County residents for a year.
As for how long it will take to get the system up to collecting the full capacity of storm water, Public Works previously told the I-Team it estimates that could take 30 to 50 years.
There is currently an open public review period of a progress report that shows what projects have been completed and recommendations for the future. You can find that here: DRAFT Biennial SCWP Progress Report for Public Review
