Greater Los Angeles Water Collaborative Unveils First Smart Cistern System

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Tetra Tech partnered with Southern California nonprofit organization TreePeople to facilitate a groundbreaking collaboration between Los Angeles public agencies to help fight the Stage 5 drought emergency. The Greater Los Angeles Water Collaborative partnership—which includes City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Los Angeles County Department of Public Works—unveiled its first pilot smart cistern system installation on November 4, 2015.

This high-profile event was attended by the Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. Both officials toured the Tetra Tech-led installation, which harvests rainwater from the roof of a home in North Hollywood. The water is routed to a large storage tank on the property. Water is available for homeowner use, and remote monitoring facilitates release of excess stored water back into the groundwater supply.

The agencies will select up to 10 locations for rainwater harvesting retrofits, which include smart cisterns and infiltration practices. Tetra Tech’s design outfits the systems with real-time monitoring sensors and controls that can detect when rain is expected, predict how much rain will fall, estimate the tank’s current capacity, and determine when water needs to be released into a rain garden created on the property. The rain garden allows water to recharge underground aquifers that help provide the city’s local water supply.

These pilot systems will help test a range of water management scenarios that will augment local water supply, enhance water quality, and reduce flood risks.

We are honored to be part of such an exciting project and to help build a climate-resilient future for Los Angeles. This project will aid future data-driven decision making throughout the greater Los Angeles region that could fundamentally change the ways in which Angelenos manage their water.

View the local CBS coverage here and read the Los Angeles Times article here.