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Slotted Curb
A recent low-tech improvement in urban planter design is saving water in LA and distributing less pollution downstream to the Pacific Ocean.
Experts say by diverting runoff into urban planters using a low-tech slotted curb design saves water and drains impurities from reaching our storm drains, and ultimately the Pacific Ocean. They say this design concept can be adapted by homeowners for garden drainage systems.
Urban runoff is the No. 1 source of pollution of California’s ocean, and during the rainy season in LA storm drains send about 100 million gallons of polluted urban runoff into the ocean .
"We're looking to weave the textures of nature into our streets and sidewalks because we've learned over the past decade or so that nature has a really elegant solution to pollution," said L.A. City Board of Public Works Commissioner Paula A. Daniels.
While runoff contains foreign pollutants unfit for the ocean, it does contain nutrients appropriate for land-based plants, and in porous landscape detention areas, plants can receive this supplemental irrigation from storm water that is filtered through the soil.
"Some people say you're capturing pollutants and creating a contaminated area," said Tom Liptan, who heads the sustainable storm water division of the Bureau of Environmental Services in Portland, a city that has been in the forefront of infiltration planter use. "We have some going on over five years, and there isn't a problem with any of the soils yet. But it's just a basic maintenance thing like you do on anything: When it gets to capacity, you clean it out."
Many environmental experts want to see a hybrid water management system that would include cisterns and reduce our dependence on the high power requirements of our current aqueduct system. TreePeople in cooperation with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power have built five demonstration cistern sites throughout Los Angeles. These five small demonstration sites currently capture an impressive 1.25 million gallons when it rains.
Half of the detention infiltration planters installed in LA over the last five years have been funded by Proposition O.
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