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 [email protected].