LA County focusing on capturing rainwater in drought

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Recent storms across the Southland have been a welcome sight after a three-year drought, but state reservoirs are still way below normal and land that was underwater for decades is now visible.

The lack of rainfall is motivating county and city officials to capture the water while it lasts.

"The storm event that we had last week, in one day, we were able to capture 1.8 billion gallons of water, which is enough to service 12,000 families of four for 12 months," said Bob Spencer with Los Angeles County.

The Tujunga spreading grounds is an infiltration basin. The water comes from street runoff and the mountains, stops at the basin before going to the ocean. At the end of the Los Angeles River where it meets the Pacific Ocean, the runoff of the latest storm moved more than 500 tons of debris and millions of gallons of water.

"We capture it in these basins and they are able to slow down and slowly percolate into the ground water basin, so that we can then pump that water out and treat it and serve it to our customer base," said Richard Harasick with Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Officials hope the recent storms are the beginning of a wet winter

"You get a dozen or more of these storms and maybe we're back to normal, but of course that's not going to make up for the past three years of drought. We need all that we can get and even more," Harasick said.