TreePeople report on Innovative Rainwater Projects

The environmental non-profit organization TreePeople released a 56-page report on three innovative rain and stormwater management projects, established as demonstration sites in Los Angeles

'Rainwater as a Resource' is a frank discussion of the TreePeople implementation of these three demonstration projects, and of the lessons learned along the way.

The report also summarizes the groundbreaking work on water quality and supply issues that TreePeople has been doing since 1998.

"Although cities consume huge amounts of natural resources and produce waste that often becomes pollution, we can no longer write urban areas off as total losses," says TreePeople Founder and President Andy Lipkis: "As we confront climate change, increasing rates of respiratory disease, ubiquitous water quality issues, and compromised ecosystems nearly everywhere on earth, it is in fact our cities that must lead the way in healing the planet".

Lipkis continues: "Most of the rain falling on Southern California cities is eventually wasted to rivers and the ocean, but not before it picks up major pollutant loads from impermeable urban surfaces.

With its pilot projects, TreePeople has shown that it is feasible to adapt homes, schools, parks, parking lots and buildings to harvest and use the rain.

Deployed on a wide scale, the approach could cut Southern California water imports by as much as 50 percent".

The report release could not be more timely, as climate change and drought threaten to disrupt the region's water supply and the state prepares to spend billions of dollars on solutions.

TreePeople case studies outline an environmentally friendly alternative approach that can provide a cost-effective and secure water supply, that is less vulnerable to climate change.

Rainwater as a Resource discusses projects at a single-family home and on two school campuses.

The home was retrofitted with retention grading, swales and a cistern to function as a miniature watershed.

It can harvest the rain from a 100-year storm event.

The two school projects, at Open Charter and Broadous Elementary Schools, feature a 110,000-gallon cistern and a 95,000-gallon infiltration field respectively.

By combining these stormwater technologies with green infrastructure and landscaping, the projects augment local water supplies, reduce the use of potable water for irrigation, reduce polluted runoff and mitigate the urban heat-island effect.

They also provide shade, alleviate flooding and improve air quality.

Most importantly, both schools now have beautiful park-like play yards with lawns and trees.

Influenced in part by the TreePeople initial successes, both the City and County of Los Angeles are planning more sustainably and building greener projects.

Rainwater as a Resource is intended to help governments, schools and nonprofits as they pursue this more integrated approach to watershed management.

By revealing what worked and what didn't on its own pilots, TreePeople hopes to facilitate the development of the next generation of innovative projects and hasten the broader acceptance of the sustainable approaches they will demonstrate.

The TreePeople work is about revitalizing and working with natural systems to make urban areas healthier and safer places to live.

Although the nonprofit has been planting and caring for trees since 1973, its work on critical water issues has elicited the greatest range of responses from the public.

A free download of Rainwater as a Resource is available at www.treepeople.org.

For more information about the report, please contact Edith Ben-Horin at TreePeople.

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