US Cities Could Be Capturing Billions of Gallons of Water Per Day

[hauntedheadnc]

US Cities Could Be Capturing Billions of Gallons of Water Per Day
With urban design upgrades, there’s no need to let so much rain go to waste.
By Matt Simon for Mother Jones

... Urban areas in the United States generate an estimated 59.5 million acre-feet of stormwater runoff per year on average—equal to 53 billion gallons each day—according to a new report from the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit research group specializing in water. Over the course of the year, that equates to 93 percent of total municipal and industrial water use. American urban areas couldn’t feasibly capture all of that bountiful runoff, but a combination of smarter stormwater infrastructure and “sponge city” techniques like green spaces would make urban areas far more sustainable on a warming planet.

***

LA was able to capture 8.6 billion gallons of water from that atmospheric river in just three days, in part by diverting it into huge “spreading grounds” to percolate into the dirt. “In most of the country, we’re going to expect—and we’re already seeing—larger, more intense storms that deliver a lot of water in a short amount of time, and then longer periods between the storm events,” says Seth Brown, executive director of the National Municipal Stormwater Alliance, which provided input for the new report. “There has been this growing trend of: let’s live with water, let’s embrace water where it is, let’s manage it and value it as a resource.”

***

Even in the Eastern US, which is more water-blessed than the West, cities like New York and Pittsburgh are scrambling to deploy green infrastructure to mitigate flooding. That could be a simple roadside area, like a rain garden or bioswale. More cities are also adopting stormwater fees, charging landowners based on the amount of impervious surfaces on a property, thus encouraging them to open up more ground. Where an impervious surface is required, like a sidewalk or parking lot, cities are using “permeable pavers” with gaps that allow water to get through. Recharging aquifers this way helps prevent the over-extraction of groundwater, which is causing the land itself to sink, known as subsidence.

[jbermingham123]

All buildings in places with arid/flash-flood climates like LA should be required to capture, store, and filter their rainwater. For anyone who says that sounds too expensive, kindly ask them to look at the average price of a home...

Depending on the neighborhood, buildings account for 40-70% of the surface area. In industrial areas, where all the buildings are high sqft and the street grid is sparse, it can be 80% or more


Even if you could reduce stormwater by only 25% that would be HUGE

[bnk]

A billion or even a trillions of gallons of water over entire MSA is like 1/8 of an inch.

Google Chicago deep tunnels, Its been going on for over 40 years and it is still not fully finished but getting close to being there after Multi Billions over many decades,

AND Chicago deep tunnels how we are trying to mitigate heavy rains in a city that was built on a swamp and most buildings were raised by jack screws an mass 10 feet above the water level.

TARP


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_and_Reservoir_Plan

The megaproject is one of the largest civil engineering projects ever undertaken in terms of scope, cost and timeframe. Commissioned in the mid-1970s, the project is managed by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. Completion of the system is not anticipated until 2029, but substantial portions of the system have already opened and are currently operational. Across 30 years of construction, over $3 billion has been spent on the project



The achievements of moving entire blocks of cities, many meters north to the moon and sometimes blocks away took time, but very little destruction happened.


You can use Jack Screws vs Hydraulic modern pumps still to this day if you have enough men and means to do it,


What Chicago did to raise itself out of a literal swamp and make the second door the first door is right out of Venice Italy but without the basement rots.

[OliverMarrero]

Wow, I didn't know it. Thanks for sharing it.

[Klippenstein]

Originally Posted by bnk

A billion or even a trillions of gallons of water over entire MSA is like 1/8 of an inch.

This is a silly thing to say since MSAs can vary so much and a trillion is 1000x more than a billion. If you look at the urban area of Chicago, 2,338 sq mi, then 1/8in of rain gives you a little more than 5 Billion gallons of water. But even within an urban area plenty of that is suburban enough to have large natural areas, preserves, yards that will soak up a lot of rain before they are saturated. I remember we got 8" of rain in the suburbs last year and that was a disastrous amount. All of that to say, I don't think 1/8 inch of rain will even touch the TARP system. That's only for large rain events.

Since it seems relevant to this discussion, when completed, TARP will have the capacity to hold 17.5 Billion gallons according to wikipedia. Right now it's a little over 10 billion gallons.

This is a little different than just rainwater run off though because it's a combined sewer system so the water is stored (in limestone quarry basins with aeration plus very diluted by the rainwater so it's not smelly) until it can be filtered and diverted back into the river system.

So if all rainwater in the Chicago urban area was forced into TARP it would overflow with 1/3 inch of rain, but that's not how it works. And really illustrates the need for more passive solutions like the article is talking about.

[ocman]

Drought-battling cities should take advantage of wastewater, either using it directly or pumping it into the ground. Orange County does that. They have the largest wastewater treatment facility in the world which last year finished expansion to recycle 100% of wastewater. Population of 3.2M and they now only import 25% (down from 70% a decade ago) of water. Compare that to LA which imports 85% (and has kept constant with population but has not decreased over the decades).

[Gantz]

Most US cities do not need to capture rainwater, because they have plenty of fresh water.
Most of the issues with water exist for some cities in arid climates out West.
Rainwater capture infrastructure is not cheap.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Most US cities do not need to capture rainwater, because they have plenty of fresh water.
Most of the issues with water exist for some cities in arid climates out West.
Rainwater capture infrastructure is not cheap.

Not really true. Rainwater capture makes for excellent flood mitigation, less water pollution, and recharges aquifers, leading to less ground subsidence. Less flooding, less pollution, and more stable ground are all good reasons to invest in it.

[Wigs]

hauntedheadnc,

don'tcha know 'Merica doesn't need trendy things such as planting more trees and capturing water that literally falls from clouds in the sky
Buncha hogwash

[chrisegeager]

US cities are basically swimming in rainwater, generating a whopping 53 billion gallons every single day. But get this – they could actually be capturing a ton of that water instead of letting it go to waste.

LA, for example, snagged a cool 8.6 billion gallons in just three days by diverting it into these massive "spreading grounds" to soak into the ground. And it's not just the West – even cities in the East like New York and Pittsburgh are getting in on the action.

They're all about upgrading their urban designs with things like rain gardens, bioswales, and permeable pavers to soak up the excess water. Plus, they're slapping on stormwater fees to incentivize landowners to open up more ground. It's all about living with water, managing it, and seeing it as a resource.

[Lost Island]

The work L.A. has done with green infrastructure is impressive, and the benefits are apparent after the record rains of 9'' in parts of that metro, winter '24. Rain gardens have been multiplying in New York City, and are needed just the same in this changing climate, no doubt. A few years ago, NYC suffered the worst urban flooding casualties in over a century due to a hurricane that initially came ashore on the Gulf Coast of the US just west of New Orleans (Ida) -- re-intensified by the jet stream over the mid-Atlantic. 41 deaths occurred in NYC-NJ urban areas. Higher than that of the category 4 storm's toll in Louisiana.

[craigs]

This mega-city is running out of water. What will 22 million people do when the taps run dry?

Patrick J. McDonnell
Los Angeles Times
March 21, 2024

When Reina Cervantes Trejo heard the truck, gears grinding as it climbed the street to her house, she rushed outside. “Thanks to our good Lord!” she said. “The water has finally arrived!” Cervantes and her husband hurried to help the driver, Fredy Romero, as he yanked hoses from the truck to fill up a cistern and a hodgepodge of plastic buckets, pails and kitchen pots the couple had assembled on their patio.

The taps had dried up weeks ago, and Cervantes’ daughter had been calling the city nearly every day, pleading for the water trucks to come to their working-class neighborhood in the city’s south. Cervantes desperately needed the water to bathe her father, who recently turned 100, and keep his clothes clean. “I don’t like to see my father looking dirty and uncomfortable,” said Cervantes, 68. “He doesn’t deserve that, especially at his age. It is no way to live.”

Water shortages are becoming a way of life in cities across the globe — Los Angeles; Cape Town, South Africa; Jakarta, Indonesia; and many more — as climate change worsens and authorities often pipe in water from ever-more-distant sources. “Water sources are depleted around the world,” said Victoria Beard, a professor of city and regional planning at Cornell University. “Every year, more cities will face ‘Day Zero,’ with no water in their piped systems.”

Mexico City — founded by the Aztecs on an island amid lakes, with a rainy season that brought torrents and flooding — might have been an exception. For decades, the focus has been getting rid of water, not capturing it.
. . . .
Read more here

[craigs]

From an article in today's Los Angeles Times:

It’s noteworthy that L.A., engineered to get as much rainwater out of the basin and into the ocean as quickly as possible, has now made remarkable progress in the other direction. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power captured and stored more than 13.5 billion gallons of stormwater in February compared with 8.4 billion gallons during the same period last year. That’s enough to meet the needs of 165,000 households for one year.

There is more to do, and LA is doing it. But this is a good start.

[Nouvellecosse]

^ Yeah it's great to hear that there's progress. It's crazy to think that a city in a relatively arid region is designed to turn as much free fresh water into unpotable salt water as possible.

[craigs]

L.A. County captures 96 billion gallons of water during ‘super year’ of storms


After heavy rains, water flows down the concrete-lined Los Angeles River past La Kretz Bridge, linking Atwater Village with Griffith Park.(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Ian James
Los Angeles Times
May 11, 2024

Heavy rains this winter and spring sent torrential flows down local creeks and rivers, and L.A. County managed to capture and store a significant amount of that stormwater, officials say. To be exact, they snared an estimated 295,000 acre-feet of water since last October, or 96.3 billion gallons. That’s enough water to supply about 2.4 million people a year — nearly one-fourth of the county’s population.

“This year has really been a super year,” said Mark Pestrella, director of L.A. County Public Works.

The county, working with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and other agencies, was able to capture and store this amount of water thanks in part to investments totaling more than $1 billion since 2001, Pestrella said. Some of the money has gone toward raising dams and increasing the capacity of spreading grounds, where water is sent into basins and then percolates underground into aquifers. “Our investments are paying off,” Pestrella said.
. . . .

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Most US cities do not need to capture rainwater, because they have plenty of fresh water.
Most of the issues with water exist for some cities in arid climates out West.
Rainwater capture infrastructure is not cheap.

Yeah don't say that too loud, you'll get banned. "New Urbanism" has morphed in the past 20 years from promoting transit, walkable neighborhoods, and form-based code to fabricated controversies that drive clicks.

Many U.S. cities are situated on the planet's greatest freshwater lakes and several of its mightiest rivers. It's only because the U.S. is so goddamn wealthy that we have seen preposterous places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and even Atlanta balloon to sizes that have created water problems that could have been avoided by...not allowing cities in dumb spots to grow, often to the detriment of cities that are in great spots.

Atlanta has been trying to access water from the Tennessee River for many years...meanwhile Chattanooga, which is situated on said river, which was improved at great expense by the TVA upwards of 100~ years ago, refuses to grow.

[pdxtex]

Catchment basins are just a giant bucket, its weird this is a novel idea. Been to any island in the Caribbean? Thats what they do. Maybe Americas will catch on. Its like solar, needs awhile to catch on I guess.

[Steely Dan]

Chicago's general issue is too much water, not too little of it.

We don't need to capture water for use, the general idea here is to find ways to detain water so that it doesn't overwhelm our combined sewer system and flood basements when mother nature pours.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Chicago's general issue is too much water, not too little of it.

We don't need to capture water for use, the general idea here is to find ways to detain water so that it doesn't overwhelm our combined sewer system and flood basements when mother nature pours.

That has traditionally been LA's primary concern as well--moving water away quickly to avoid flooding homes, businesses, roads, etc. Only recently has the region realized that it should also try to move it somewhere useful.

[Steely Dan]

^ the problem in Chicago is that the land here is so unrelentingly flat, that there's no good place to put it. The city was built on a former marsh, and that's still kinda what it wants to be.

Hence TARP, the multi-decade, multi-billion dollar tunnel and reservoir program to channel and store excess rainwater underground and into old rock quarries, where it can be treated and slowly released back into area water ways.

And we have no need to do anything "useful" with the water as there's no elevation change to do any kind of power generation, and 20% of the world's surface freshwater is already in our front yard.