DISQUS

Joe Weinstein · 1 year ago

Thanks for quoting Matt Lyons, who is on target and quite correct.

He has identified one of the two big reasons - inappropriate water-guzzling landscaping - why we are being kept from having ample and readily affordable water supplies without worries as to where more water may come from. Such landscaping is needless. California native shrubs (as in our front yard and many others) not only are tuned to the rainfall that we get, and require minimum maintenance, but also if planted in sufficient variety give attractive blooms all year round. Right now, toyons are presenting gorgeous and very seasonal red berries. In a couple months we can expect blue and white blooms of ceanothus (Calif. lilac - long popular in England!), and red fuschia-flowered gooseberries.

The other reason is Long Beach' amazing surplus of needlessly impermeable hardscape (on wide streets, parking lots, and concreted or asphalted yards). This hardscape converts what should be a ready benefit of local rain - inexpensive recharge of ground water - into an expensive problem instead - rapid runoff and flooding, requiring piping to remove further and wastefully to the ocean.

Before agreeing to 'invest' any big sums to update or maintain pavement and piping 'infrastructure' (as was the stated intent of the recently defeated Measure I, and apparently still massively on the mayor's wish list of goodies desired from the Obama administration), Long Beach citizens should insist on updating of needlessly impermeable pavement to permeable surface.

Joe Weinstein · 1 year ago

Thanks for quoting Matt Lyons, who is totally correct.

He has identified one of the two big reasons - inappropriate water-guzzling landscaping - why we are being kept from having ample and readily affordable water supplies without worries as to where more water may come from. Such landscaping is needless. California native shrubs (as in our front yard and many others') not only are tuned to the rainfall that we get, and require minimum maintenance, but also if planted in sufficient variety give attractive blooms all year round. Right now, toyons are presenting gorgeous and very seasonal red berries. In a couple months we can expect blue and white blooms of ceanothus (Calif. lilac - long popular in England!), and red fuschia-flowered gooseberries.

The other reason is Long Beach' amazing surplus of needlessly impermeable hardscape (on wide streets, parking lots, and concreted or asphalted yards). This hardscape converts what should be a ready benefit of local rain - inexpensive recharge of ground water - into an expensive problem instead - rapid runoff and flooding, requiring piping to remove further and wastefully to the ocean.

Before agreeing to 'invest' any big sums in pavement and piping 'infrastructure' (as was the stated intent of the recently defeated Measure I, and apparently still massively on the mayor's wish list of goodies desired from the Obama administration), Long Beach citizens should insist that existing needlessly impermeable paving be replaced by permeable surface.

John_B · 1 year ago

I strongly agree with Joe here. According to our Water Department web page, Long Beach gets almost as much it’s fresh water from groundwater sources (38%) as it purchases from the MWD (42%). The less groundwater that is available, the more we have to purchase from MWD.

Long Beach should certainly take the lead in replacing impermeable hardscape with more permeable varieties wherever possible, just as it should also take the lead in installing more effective grates and screens on and in *all* of its street level storm drains. But since the sources of central basin water come from areas far flung from Long Beach, the ultimate answer to replenishing that critical water source in that way must, likewise, be a more regional answer.

Long Beach cannot legally compel other jurisdictions to cooperate with these and other water conservation and pollution mitigation efforts. But if we will commit to taking a greater leadership role in these areas among our neighboring cities, we can at least lead them by example. In doing so, some of those other jurisdictions may well join in voluntarily.

When it becomes necessary to ask the County or State to step in and mandate some of these measures (and I feel certain that it will, indeed, become necessary), we will be making that request from a position of much greater strength.