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How can green streets and complete streets help our communities?
A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to talk about taking our vision beyond a single street retrofit to transforming communities at the Municipal Green Building Conference in Downey. Our lens is...
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Loving the Los Angeles River
This summer, a few hardy souls “owned” the LA River by kayaking a 1.5 mile stretch in the Sepulveda Basin. Tickets were available for about six minutes on an early July morning for the trips in August...
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How does the “San Gabriel Watershed and Mountains National Park” sound?
Could one of the most densely populated areas in the US see national park rangers in its recreation areas someday? For the last six years, the National Park Service has been studying just that...
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What’s next for green streets? How about green alleys!
Imagine living next to a blighted alleyway. You’d like to use it to walk to church or school or the bus stop, but it’s unsafe and ugly. This is the situation that used to exist in the Elmer Avenue...
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How to create a clean water alley, Part I
The Elmer Paseo is all but complete – we still have some finishing touches to add so it won’t be officially open until the new year. For all of you stormwater geeks, following is a photo essay showing...
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How to create a clean water alley, Part 2
In Part 1, we showed the initial steps in constructing the infiltration and bio-swale. Part 2 illustrates the complex choreography of marrying the infiltration trench and the bio-swale. The majority of...
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How to create a clean water alley, Part 3
Now that the infiltration trench and bio-swale have been constructed, it is time to lay the sidewalk, which goes on top of the infiltration trench. How’s that, you say? Putting a sidewalk on top of the...
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What’s in that stream?
A few Sundays ago I was approached by a young girl who wanted to do a science fair project. She thought maybe she could test the water in the creak near her house. She was going to look at the water...
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How to create a clean water alley, Part 4
As we mentioned in an earlier post, the reason we are converting the Paseo into green infrastructure is because it receives water from about 20 upstream acres of land and the soils and geology are...
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How to create a clean water alley, Part 5
While the concrete cured, the crew focused on several elements as illustrated in the following photographs Refining grade elevations for the bio-swale. Prepping the wall for paint. Using a roller...
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A new way of thinking about sustainability
The journal Nature published a commentary on March 21 that argues for a new way of thinking about sustainability, with the traditional three pillars of economy, environment, and society instead...
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The Los Angeles River in one word
We asked people to describe “The LA River Today” in one word. Here’s what they said: When we asked people to complete the sentence “I want the LA River to be–” with one word, we heard some inspiring...
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Looking for some good news about climate change?
In a month of some truly depressing news about the environment and climate change, a bright spot appeared. But first, here are two illustrations of the trouble we are in. In early April, we read that...
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Is Natural Gas Our Route to Energy Independence?
Is Natural Gas Our Route to Energy Independence? Today a post from T. Boone Pickens promoting the 5th anniversary of his energy plan for America dropped into my inbox. His plan, which he touts in a...
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How do you shut down a river?
It boggles the mind to think that the Colorado River has been shut down for rafting. Can you imagine if water delivery was shutdown? Imagine if the tap was turned off to California, Nevada, New...
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Elmer Avenue Projects: A Look Back over Six Seasons
It’s now been over a year since the completion of the Elmer Paseo, a new, walkable alleyway that is designed to help water to soak into the aquifer. Even during the drought, the Paseo has weathered...
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The Real Benefits of River Parkways
It’s no surprise but always gratifying when a major study confirms something we’ve suspected – that living near an urban river parkway improves health. A new review of the research by Dr. Richard...
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Enhance Your Impact Through “Design Thinking”
nancysteele:At Council for Watershed Health, we use design thinking most visibly in our Water Augmentation research and demonstration program. In the research phase, from 2000 to about 2008, we...
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From Los Angeles to Athens: Exploring Climate Change in Mediterranean Cities
Our travels to Greece this summer for a conference on the Mediterranean City 2014: Adaptation Strategies to Global Environmental Change allowed us to explore the similarities and differences between...
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Fall Weather Got You Spooked?
For California Flood Preparedness Week, Drew Ready talked with the National Weather Service’s Eric Boldt about the wild weather we’ve had this summer and fall. Read on… Hurricanes that battered Baja...
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