Culver City recently completed a multi-pronged approach to help enhance water quality for Ballona Creek and local beaches.
The project included the installation of storm drain screens, building a series of rain gardens and placing new trash and recycling receptacles on the city’s major thoroughfares.
“This is a good demonstration of what needs to happen on a larger scale,” said Damian Skinner, Culver City’s environmental programs and operations manager at Culver City’s Public Works Department.
The capture of stormwater pollution is critical to improving watershed water quality, say local environmental experts. The rain gardens play a significant role in capturing stormwater and redirecting it back into the ground to be used for irrigation purposes.
More than 1,000 storm drain screens are now in place throughout Culver City and each has automatic and retractable trash screens inside the storm drain catch basins to prevent debris from entering the catch basins.
“That way we can assure that trash stays on Culver City streets to be picked up instead of heading into Ballona Creek,” Skinner said.
Culver City Public Works Director Charles Herberston mentioned the importance of taking a multifaceted approach to water quality after the City Council passed the ordinance in November. One of the planned initiatives involved drawing water from Ballona Creek, filtering it and then returning clean water back into the creek.
“Combating storm water pollution requires a multi-pronged approach and this is just one of them,” Herbertson said
City Manager John Nachbar considers the capture of storm water pollution to be a critical financial, as well as environmental, concern for all cities.
“This is something that I really think the public should know about,” he said in a previous interview. “(Controlling) stormwater pollution is going to require a major operating expense.”
City leaders adopted a low impact ordinance last year that requires developers who build new projects to instigate measures that will reduce stormwater runoff.
“We’ll see more projects like this in the future,” Skinner said.
The project cost nearly $1.9 million. Funding for the stormwater initiative was provided from Proposition 50, a 2002 ballot initiative designed to finance a variety of water projects, including providing funds for water quality and water management projects. Culver City received Prop. 50 funding through the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission.
