Fellow Story
Steele quoted on L.A.'s quest to 'sponge up' every bit of rainwater
In the past, every time it rained, says Nancy Steele, the city was wasting precious water it didn't even use.
The executive director of the Council for Watershed Health, Steele helped plan the Elmer Avenue Neighbourhood Retrofit, and she points to what looks like a normal storm drain.
"There's no bottom," she says, pointing to a retrofitted stormdrain.
"A normal storm drain would be all concrete. It would direct the water into the storm drain system, which would take the water into, in our case, the L.A. River."
But this new drain has no concrete bottom and so it allows the water to dribble and percolate.
"So that provides the storage underneath the street for the water to flow through and then slowly soak into the ground."
