It seems like we’re always in a drought in Southern California, i, so when it rains, the question becomes: Where did all that precious water go?
What’s in an acre-foot?
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One acre-foot is about the amount of water it would take to fill a football field a foot deep. The city of L.A. uses about 500,000 acre-feet of water every year.
Well, not all of it ends up in the ocean. According to Art Castro, Watershed Manager at the L.A. Department of Water and Power, in the last four days alone, the city of L.A. captured enough water to fill about 8,900 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
And the county’s system of dams and spreading grounds was boosted by 213,200 acre-feet (69.5 billion gallons); enough water for more than 1.7 million people for a year, according to Steve Frasher, a spokesperson with L.A. County Public Works. For comparison, the city of L.A. uses about 500,000 acre-feet of water per year.
Most of that water fell into dams in the San Gabriel mountains, the largest of which are the Tujunga and Pacoima dams. That water will then be slowly released into spreading grounds so it can seep into underground basins that store much of our local water.
Why catching more local rain matters
The city of L.A. currently pipes in about 90% of its water from reservoirs fed by Sierra Nevada snowmelt and the Colorado River. As the climate crisis and overuse threaten those traditional supplies, the city’s goal is to be able to capture 150,000 acre-feet of stormwater in a year by 2035.
L.A.’s Stormwater Goals
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