THE NATURAL PERSPECTIVE -- Vic Leipzig and Lou Murray
Lou and I recently had a call from a Huntington Beach resident who was
concerned about urban runoff-from his own property!
Bryan Courtney lives in one of the newer neighborhoods in Seacliff, south
of Garfield. He had a story that I didn’t believe at first.
“You should see the water going down my drains,” he said. “My yards, and
all my neighbors’ yards, are covered with drains.”
I had to visit his home to see for myself. Just as he described, his yard
is covered with drains.
My own home is lower than street level and has an odd drainage situation
that requires two side-yard drains. These drains, which collect runoff
from the driveway and side-yard walkway, lead to a pipe that goes
underneath the house behind me and then into the storm drain. I expected
some similar oddity at Bryan’s house.
When I visited him, I found a large, lovely home on a typical lot with
typical slope from back to front. But covering the yard were 30, count
‘em 30, little drains leading to 3” PVC pipes that led down under the
sidewalk. The water collected by the pipes emerged through the front of
the curb, one drain hole on each side of the driveway. Every home in his
neighborhood had two, or in some cases, three of these holes.
Other than the poor asthetics of holes in the curb, what’s the problem
here?
Bryan explained it to me.
Whenever the sprinklers go on, water immediately rushes down the drains
to the curb, without getting a chance to percolate into the soil. The
result is a much larger volume of runoff than is really necessary.
Furthermore, a larger portion of applied fertilizer and pesticide is
washed off the landscape. It goes into the storm drains and then into
some ultimate receiving body of water. In the case of Bryan’s
neighborhood, that ultimate destination for urban runoff is the Bolsa
Chica wetlands.
One lesser aspect of this situation is that the curbs in Bryan’s
neighborhood always show a trickle of water, night and day, coming from
all the yards. The standing water situation is so bad that at the end of
Bryan’s cul-de-sac, the street was covered with algae where pedestrians
would cross! Such pockets of standing water are perfect breeding grounds
for mosquitoes.
Now there’s no law against a homeowner installing such a drain system. I
checked. And given how many laws and regulations are already on the
books, maybe we don’t even want there to be a new one just for this.
Maybe a little public education will help.
Nobody really needs such an elaborate and expensive drain system. New
home lots are required to have adequate slope so that ordinary drainage
will work.
Bryan told me something else that surprised me: It wasn’t the developer
who installed his drain system. These systems were all installed by
landscaping contractors who were hired by the individual homeowners!
Is there a solution to this problem?
Yes. In fact, there are two.
For those who don’t already have such a system, don’t spend money on a
system you don’t need. As for homeowners like Bryan, whose yard already
has such a system, do what Bryan does. Cover the drain holes. Let the
water go where Mother Nature wants it to go and where it will do the most
good: into the ground.
There may be valid reasons for this type of drainage system, but we can’t
think of what they might be. Some will argue that homeowners can do what
they want with their property. But we think about the ultimate recipient
of the runoff from our lawns, Talbert Marsh and the Bolsa Chica wetlands,
and worry about what all those pesticides and fertilizers are doing to
the natural environment. And how urban runoff affects the health of
surfers and others who swim and play in the ocean.
What do you think? Do you think that construction of drainage systems
such as Bryan’s should be banned by the city?
VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and
environmentalists. They can be reached at vicleipzig@aol.com.
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