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lenbryant · 4 months

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LONG POST: L.A. River. We hate this concrete trough until it saves us from catastrophic flooding.

(LATimes) The unloved L.A. River just prevented a flood disaster. Can more of its water be saved?

By Hayley SmithStaff Writer

As intense atmospheric rivers become more common in a warming world, so too do questions about stormwater capture in Los Angeles. Each year, when rain pours down and the L.A. River roars back to life, Angelenos want to know how much of that water is being captured and stored — and how much is washing out to sea.

The monster storm that hammered Southern California this week dropped billions of gallons of rain, but as much as 80% of that water was whisked into the Pacific Ocean, experts say.

For residents who only recently were asked to conserve unprecedented amounts of water, such a loss can be confounding. But capturing rainfall is only one part of the L.A. River’s job. It is also a flood control channel that is critical to protecting lives and properties when stormwaters surge.

“It’s a delicate balance between capturing that water for beneficial use later on and keeping the public safe — making sure that people can get to work and that children can get to school,” said Kerjon Lee, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.

Indeed, without the Los Angeles River and other local channels such as Ballona Creek, more of that stormwater would have ended up in streets and neighborhoods. The waterways were channelized nearly a hundred years ago in response to devastating regional flooding.

March 2, 1938: Remnants of a destroyed Southern Pacific Railroad bridge are submerged in the roiling waters of the Los Angeles River, in a photo taken from North Figueroa Street.

(Los Angeles Times)

Once a free-flowing waterway, the L.A. River flooded repeatedly as the city was developed. A 1914 flood caused an estimated $10 million worth of damage; the L.A. Times reported that the city was “in the grasp of swirling water.”

On New Year’s Day in 1934, a storm once again unleashed torrents from the San Gabriel Mountains. The river and its tributaries swelled, inundating communities around La Crescenta and claiming dozens of lives and houses.

And in 1938, a great deluge changed the city and its river forever. Engorged by two back-to-back storms, the waterway roared as flows reached the remarkable rate of 99,000 cubic feet per second. Water soon poured into low-lying areas from downtown to Long Beach, sweeping away more than 5,600 structures and killing more than 110 people.

In response to the $78-million catastrophe, the people of Los Angeles called for greater flood control measures, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began encasing the channel in concrete. Experts credited the work with preventing floods in 1969 and 1980, when the river saw even higher flows than it had in 1938.

In that regard, Reznik said, the system “is working as intended.”

March 2, 1938: Drains could not keep up with rain filling streets in downtown Los Angeles.

(Los Angeles Times)

Most of that comes through groundwater recharge, or opportunities for water to spread and seep into aquifers. Public Works also maintains 14 major dams in the mountains above L.A., as well as five others operated in conjunction with the Army Corps. During the summer, water is released from those dams into spreading grounds for percolation.

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The maneuvers are a dance “between flood protection and stormwater capture,” according to Lee. “We want as much capacity as possible in those dams to capture the water and try to hold it up there in the dams for as long as we can, without threatening lives and property downstream.”

The Los Angeles River near downtown.

(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

In 2018, voters approved Measure W, a tax aimed at capturing and cleaning more stormwater before it reaches the ocean. That initiative, later dubbed the Safe Clean Water Program, allocates $280 million annually to stormwater projects, including those geared toward reducing asphalt and hardscaping that prevent water from seeping into the earth.

A report on the program last year found that its progress has been slow, with about 30 acres of green space added across the 3-million-acre county in the first three years.

“Having 90% of runoff heading down the L.A. River isn’t good from a water supply — isn’t good from a pollution, isn’t good from a public safety — standpoint,” Reznik said. “And so I think that’s where we’re going to really have to ask some hard questions about how we can do a better job.”

Los Angeles imports the vast majority of its water from other places, including Northern California, the Owens Valley and the Colorado River. But as drought and warming make those resources less reliable, the need for local supplies has never been more critical, Reznik said.

Stormwater surges from an outfall pipe into the Los Angeles River in Long Beach.

(Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

That’s a problem, because most of California’s water systems were built for “hundred-year” storms, or rain events with a 1% likelihood of occurring, said Anne Lynch, a civil engineer and water management expert with GHD, a consulting firm.

“We’re living off of our grandparents’ investments in our water infrastructure,” she said. “It’s time for us now. We’re all going to have to pay for the future, to address climate change and the degradation of our existing systems as they reach the end of their useful life.”

The good news is that L.A. has the funds to make good investments in stormwater capture, she said.

Measure W includes a variety of efforts to “find ways to incentivize people to put permeable pavers in their driveways and just do different projects all over the L.A. Basin,” Lynch said. “We’re kind of taking it in small snippets, but all of that manages to capture flow, recharge it to the groundwater and also helps with seawater intrusion and a whole host of other things.”

Measure W has seen some success, such as the East Los Angeles Sustainable Median Stormwater Capture Project, which is helping to infiltrate approximately 7.1 million gallons of runoff in the Rio Hondo watershed near Montebello. The project also provides above-ground improvements, such as jogging paths, trees and drought-tolerant landscaping.

County officials said it could take three to five decades for Measure W to reach its goal of capturing 300,000 acre-feet, about 98 billion gallons, of water annually. But during last year’s remarkably wet winter, the county exceeded expectations and captured 628,508 acre-feet, according to Public Works.

The Los Angeles River flows fast and muddy in February 2023.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

There are other regional projects underway, including new spreading ground facilities from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, “which will all be contributing to the groundwater locally and future drinking-water supply in Los Angeles,” Martin Adams, the general manager, said during a news conference this week.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a massive regional wholesaler, has also been monitoring flows from the storm, according to spokeswoman Rebecca Kimitch. Although the MWD does not directly manage or store local runoff, its 26 member agencies typically capture about 1.1 million acre-feet of stormwater each year, she said. About 500,000 acre-feet are sent to the ocean.

“On average, about half of that flow to the ocean happens over three days of the year, during large storm events like this,” Kimitch said. “During such storms, the flows are so fast, it can be difficult to capture, and the priority is flood control.”

The latest atmospheric river parked itself over Southern California on Sunday and delivered 60% of L.A.’s average seasonal rainfall in just three days, according to the National Weather Service. Downtown L.A. received a total of 8.51 inches Sunday, Monday and Tuesday — its second-wettest three-day run since official records began in 1877. The highest three-day total was 9.21 inches, during the 1938 flood.

This week’s storm left a trail of chaos, including freeway closures, submerged vehicles, landslides and evacuations. The L.A. River raged; videos show swirling brown water roaring through the channel. On Monday afternoon, the Los Angeles Fire Department rescued a person who was swept away in the river’s rapid waters.

“The banks of the river are not — and I repeat — are not the place to be during the storm,” Chief Kristin Crowley said during a news conference Tuesday. “The L.A. River is full and will continue to flow with high intensity today.”

Yet the river has largely held — absorbing the near-record precipitation from the storm, thanks to extensive preparations, drain clearing and dredging of debris, officials said. Still, some expressed concern that it can be pushed only so far.

“The system can handle multiple atmospheric rivers, as long as they have some spacing between them,” Dena O’Dell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, told The Times. “When they are back-to-back without a break, the system could be tested.”

While the county is investing in stormwater capture, such investments are in a race against upstream development that is creating more impermeable areas and increasing flows — not unlike the conditions that led to the floods in the last century.

The Los Angeles River, near Atwater Village, on Monday.

(Ringo Chiu / For The Times)

“It’s a really good sign that we’re not doing things just for one benefit anymore,” she said.

For now, however, there are billions — if not tens of billions — of gallons of runoff that are not recharging aquifers and are continuing to pollute waterways and pose health and safety threats, Reznik said.

If L.A. can continue to reduce storm flows by creating more green space, “it sort of becomes a win for everybody,” he said.

In other words, capturing more stormwater from the L.A. River would have the dual benefit of keeping more people safe and saving them more water.

#refrigerator magnet #los angeles river #los angeles #flooding #floods #rain #el nino #storm #water #that concrete trough we love to hate

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thechembow · 1 year

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'Dry' California got big rains. Was it really an epic weather forecasting fail?

Jan. 23, 2023 - LA Times

For decades, two climate patterns in the Pacific Ocean have loomed large in predicting weather in California and other parts of the globe. El Niño — a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific — seemed synonymous with wet winters for Southern California, while La Niña was a heralder of drought.

But the would-be model didn't hold up this winter. Despite La Niña's presence, a robust series of 10 storms brought impressive precipitation across California, spurring floods and landslides, increasing reservoir levels and dumping eye-popping snowfall in the mountains.

The Sierra Nevada has a snowpack of 240% of average for the date, and 126% of where it should be by the start of April. San Francisco was drenched with more than 18 inches of rain since Christmas, posting its wettest 22-day period since 1862. Downtown Los Angeles has logged more than 13 inches of rain since October — more than 90% of its annual average of 14.25 inches.

Though winter isn't over, and a renewed dry spell can't be ruled out, the significant storms have defied expectations of a dry winter...

Typically, La Niña produces dry winters in Southern California. And that pattern fit the previous two years.

But this winter, it changed. Since the start of December, downtown L.A. has received more than 11 inches of rain — more than double the average 4.91 inches for that time, and also above the entire December-January-February average of 9.41 inches.

Still, this shift is not an anomaly. In fact, La Niña was present during a spectacularly wet season: the winter of 2016–17.

Storms were so intense across California that they ended a punishing drought that ran from 2012 to 2017. By the end of the 2016–17 water year, downtown L.A. got 134% of its average rainfall; San Jose suffered surprise flooding that inundated hundreds of homes; and a retaining wall threatened to collapse at California's second-largest reservoir, triggering an order to evacuate more than 100,000 people downstream of filled-to-the-brim Lake Oroville.

That season was so memorable that the northern Sierra Nevada — crucial to the state's water supply — recorded its wettest precipitation in the historical record. Skiers were coasting down mountain slopes in late June...

You can’t forecast based on past patterns, only on energetic factors in the atmosphere. El Nino and La Nina are meaningless when it comes to weather. Rain is a function of orgone energy working in the atmosphere, and past patterns could not predict our gifting of Salt Lake City this past summer, which removed a major blockage to our weather across the continent.

The previous season they referenced which defied the pattern they thought was settled science, 2016-2017, was after we gifted Portland, OR in November of 2016 and busted down the west coast frequency fence in the northwest. Meteorology cannot acknowledge energetic factors because the whole pseudo-science of meteorology was devised as a cover up for the real science of weather, orgonomy. They deny atmospheric energy and they deny the work we’ve been doing for the past eight years.

And yes, it was an EPIC forecasting fail. If they want to learn to forecast they should study Wilhelm Reich and the science of orgone energy.

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arborescreens-a · 1 year

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3 of a kind, and the one who made them.

#my ocs #art #malakiy livbar (oc)#cherub livbar (oc)#seraph livbar (oc)#nino kishin (oc)#angels #blood #scopophobia #just for the eyes on the hands and cherub staring forward #anywyays i love my angels SOOOSOSo much. mwah mwah mwAH

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grimstalkr · 1 year

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❰❰ LEAN ❱❱ sender leans against receiver

Studying late into the evening wasn't exactly how Tharja had imagined her night going. Though she had promised Nino to help her with some classwork. So there they sat as Tharja shared her meticulously detailed notes from their classes that day. Poor Nino seemed exhausted by the end of it, leaning on Tharja's arm as she started to doze off. Tharja sat perfectly still as Nino leaned on her. She was frozen completely, unsure of what to do next. She could shake Nino awake, push her off completely, or even loudly complain that she was falling asleep on her.

In the end, Tharja did none of those things. Instead, she sat quietly and opened one of her textbooks. Deciding to get ahead in her studies for the week. If Nino needed the rest she couldn't bring herself to rudely wake the girl up. Children needed their rest.

#ic #ninocence #ask #blessed little angel nino

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candied-pear · 2 years

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Misako’s spending all of Nino’s cash.

#misako #nino #misako inu #oc #original character #own character #god complex #misako just really loves instant food and not working #fallen angel

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zoe-oneesama · 2 years

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A thousand years ago (or really just 1 year ago) I talked about an Angelic Layer AU. Starting with our main group, here are some Angels with their Deus’. I’m not 100% sure how to make a completely narrative with these characters since Angelic Layer is just a tournament arc and very little else, but I had fun creating “uniforms that aren’t uniforms” for the characters.

Bad Girls Inner Zodiac Outer Zodiac

Ko-fi | Patreon

#angelic layer au #ml au #crossover au #my art #marinette #ladybug #adrien #chat noir #alya #rena rouge #nino #carapace #alau #alau art

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princessalbertroseofarizona · 2 years

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Bless These Guardian Angels From My Hero Academia

~ Bendice a estos ángeles guardianes de My Hero Academia

#happy national catholic day #catholiccore #guardian angel #angelcore #heavencore #god's warriors #bleesed #angeliccore #angelic #virgen de guadalupe #santo nino de atocha #my hero academia #mirio togata #deku #izuku midoriya #my hero academia eri #jesus's heroes #deku and mirio #mirio x deku

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woundsacrality · 4 months

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when i finally have a crush on a perfect guy and he's married

#just another day as a neapolitan quartet protagonist i guess #NINO AND N*** ARE ESSENTIALLY THE SAME NAME #nino is awful and n*** is an actual angel but STILL

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mywifeleftme · 5 months

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279: V/A // Sky Girl

Sky Girl Various Artists 2013/2016 (reissue), Not on label/Efficient Space (Bandcamp)

Funny little compilation here, assembled from various ‘60s to ‘90s private and art presses by two French DJs. Of course, clearance issues come for us all—the original independently-released 2013 CD version had a rather different track list than this 2016 vinyl reissue on the Australian Efficient Space label. Still, in either formulation Sky Girl has a wonderful melancholy sweetness, mapping an emotional Venn diagram between C86 indie, Vashti Bunyan, Arthur Russell, bedroom R&B, gawky synth pop, and beyond. Being largely* from the private press realm, the originals of these recordings are nearly all painfully pricey: Warfield Spillers’ “Daddy’s Little Girl” single crosses the soul ballad with Beat Happening lo-fi and will cost you $800; an original of the Rising Storm LP that contains “Frozen Laughter,” an impossibly delicate psychedelic idyll, will run you a cool six grand or so. Unlike a lot of comps that focus on this market, this isn’t really weirdo stuff. These people are for the most part fairly talented and seemingly sane people who are trying their best to make good music that will make the listener feel something. Some of them probably could’ve gotten a bite at the record industry apple with a little more luck, but a lot of the songs the compilers have selected have a private vibe that seems endemic to their nature, like overhearing something intended for a lover or a diary. Collectors pay a premium for that sense, like some Japanese novel about lovers who never meet but distantly pine in a waft of mutual déjà vu (this I guess is the plot of Le double vie de Véronique also, and “Ana Ng”).

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I would’ve loved if the compilation’s liners had offered more of the stories of these recordings, though it’s admittedly fun to Do My Own Research sometimes. (And the reissue cover is lamentably drab.) The 2016 version of the comp is readily available on streaming platforms for those who wish to sample—I especially recommend prolific indie cassette artist Linda Smith’s “I So Liked Spring,” Australian minimal wave obscurity Karen Marks’ “Cold Café,” and the robotic puberty-angst groover “Feeling Sheepish” by Some of My Best Friends Are Canadians. But Sky Girl really is more than the sum of its parts, as any good mixtape should be.

279/365

* The CD version did open with a track by the Haruomi Hosono-affiliated duo Testpattern that was well-distributed, in Japan at least.

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