It took until September 15th for L.A. to get a good soaking rain. Here are the numbers…
Alhambra, downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica and the Getty Center also received more than two inches of rain.
The largest total in the area recorded was 2.64 inches of rainfall, according to the National Weather Service with UCLA’s campus a skosh behind, at 2.62 inches.
Why is it important?
The obvious answer is that rain is much needed for nature in a multitude of ways that even the most casual reader of the L.A. Times will have gleaned. Fires, agriculture, General Sherman the Tree all are affected in extreme ways.
My fear is that as much as we need it, if we don’t get sustained rainfall and instead get a little rain here and a little there then the conservation efforts will start to fade. Two months of positive water savings may be undone because people will start to think that everything is back to normal. Sometimes the fact that you have a gun to your head inspires some serious action. And serious water conservation is needed to not only get us past this drought that we are in but to prepare for the next drought that will come. Plus grant us room to add more breweries down the line.
It means that breweries old and new will need to invest in machinery that re-captures as much water as possible. It means becoming an early adopter of technology that taps into new “streams” of water like de-salination. It means becoming partners with the farms that provide the other ingredients that make up beer. Ingredients that need to be grown with the help of, you guessed it, H2O.
To take the conservation theme to an even further place, maybe it means that breweries brew in more water resourceful states, and not here. It seems radical to propose but barring tanker trucks filled with water driving into town, maybe it needs to be talked about.
Let’s hope that the Godzilla El Nino fills the clouds but prepare for future days too.