It’s been a rainy couple of days here in Santa Barbara, just enough
to fill up a few puddles and trigger a few freeway fender benders. Spring, or perhaps “pre-spring,” showers
in southern California always serve to highlight a few
normally dormant concerns: mudslides in last season’s burn areas, flooding as a
result of clogged storm drains, and beach contamination due to runoff. But as I watched the rain splash along
the street and heard it tripping down the gutter, I once again lamented the fact
that rainwater catchment is still not as popular as it should be. Last fall, I attended the American Rainwater Catchment Systems
Association’s (ARCSA) annual conference in Santa Monica, CA. The theme of the conference was “Water—The
New California Gold Rush,” and a variety of professional voices presented ideas
great and small regarding the justification for and the installation of
rainwater catchment systems not only in California, but also throughout the
country.
While I mentioned
this conference in a previous blog, some of the interesting facts I learned bear
repeating:
- Trees are rainwater harvesting
machines! An oak tree can collect
and treat 57,000 gallons of stormwater.
- If all of Los Angeles’s rainwater
was collected, it could supply half of all the state’s water needs. (So far, six projects in Los Angeles capture 1.25
million gallons of water every time the city gets an inch or more of
rain.)
- The single largest use
of electricity in the state of California? Pumping water to the Los Angeles basin.
- Although the typical
human needs around 50 gallons of water per day, the US consumes
approximately 150 gallons per person per day.
It seems as if
rainwater harvesting is a no brainer, so why isn’t it more widespread? Do you think communities should do more
to promote rainwater catchment as part of a comprehensive water conservation
program? Or is rainwater catchment
just a drop in the bucket?