I guess it’s time to remake the movie Chinatown, which told the classic tale of Los Angeles stealing water from the far off Owens River basin. Finding new sources of water has always been critical to the continuation of the California dream. Unfortunately, the results of that search have often been devastating to California’s rivers and the San Francisco Bay-Delta. Recently though, Los Angeles has announced an ambitious plan to meet all of its future water needs through water conservation and recycling, as well as innovative approaches that include cleaning up contaminated groundwater and capturing stormwater.

The plan wisely focuses on where the waste is. Since half or more of urban water use goes to watering landscapes, a lot of water can be saved by choosing regionally appropriate landscaping and watering it efficiently. This can include installation of a “smart” controller that adjusts for weather conditions.  No more sprinklers going in the rain.  These smart controllers can save homeowners over 40 gallons per day and cut polluted runoff in half, and many California water agencies offer rebates to help cover the cost. The new LA plan notes that these controllers are already used in parks and golf courses around Los Angeles, and that it is now time to extend this innovative technology to residential use. The new plan calls for the city to install 5,250 smart controllers per year, with a total of 63,500 by 2020.

Saving water indoors can include installing efficient fixtures and appliances, and checking for leaks. The U.S. EPA has a new rating program called WaterSense (like Energy Star) to help you indentify these products. EPA estimates that by giving your bathroom a WaterSense makeover, you can save 11,000 gallons of water per year. The LA plan includes raising rebate levels for homeowners and businesses that purchase water-saving technology.

Other key elements of the plan include

• expanding water recycling sixfold by 2020, for irrigation and industrial use and groundwater replenishment,
• increasing stormwater capture
• cleaning up contaminated groundwater in the San Fernando Basin where over 47 percent of the wells have been closed due to contamination.

All of these approaches reflect an ethic of making the best use of existing resources. The new Los Angeles Plan has a lot less intrigue than the old approach, (and it doesn’t have Jack Nicholson) but boy is it smarter. Environmental groups like NRDC have long touted these alternatives as cheaper and faster than the expensive and destructive dams that the governor and some legislators want to build. The LA approach will also save us all money, stretch limited water supplies, save energy and reduce water pollution.

Los Angeles has often been held up as an example of a city that shouldn’t exist, living, as it were, on “borrowed” water. But LA has taken responsibility and announced a plan that should be a model for the rest of California, and indeed for the rest of the country. I guess we won’t have LA to kick around anymore.