Evaluating the Equity and Efficacy of Los Angeles County’s Stormwater Capture Projects

Urban watersheds face ongoing challenges from pollution, particularly from urban runoff. Stormwater capture projects are touted for their multi-benefit outcomes, but there is a gap in the data examining their potential pollution reduction impacts for fecal indicator bacteria, which this project aims to address.  Heal the Bay is a Los Angeles-based organization that has been monitoring water quality at local beaches for decades. They have expanded their efforts to Los Angeles (LA) County rivers in the last ten years. There are several initiatives currently funding stormwater capture projects in LA County; improved water quality is often cited as one of the desirable outcomes of these multi-benefit projects. Our group plans to analyze the last ten years of water quality data from Heal the Bay’s monitoring programs and investigate patterns driving loads of fecal indicator bacteria at LA beaches and rivers. We will analyze contamination concentrations in areas where stormwater capture projects have been implemented to evaluate their efficacy at addressing bacterial contamination. Our findings will be used to generate recommendations for where future stormwater capture projects may have the most significant impact, with a focus on environmental health equity. Our approach will include creating a cloud-based database of Heal The Bay’s water quality monitoring data and the location of stormwater capture projects, and building a Shiny app to visualize project locations and trends in water quality. These products will support Heal The Bay’s mission to make coastal waters and watersheds in greater Los Angeles safe, clean, and healthy.