Los Angeles (L.A.) has a flooding problem. Like Houston and other large cities, development has replaced its natural ecosystem of grasslands and oak forests with buildings, concrete parking lots and freeways. Instead of soaking up the water as the natural ecosystem would do, much needed rain water becomes toxic run off as it rapidly flows over the smooth, impervious surfaces to the ocean. The Corp of Engineers solution to the flooding problem was to build levees that would shuttle the water more directly to the ocean, until Andy Lipkis and TreePeople intervened.

Andy Lipkis, president of TreePeople, started the citizen forestry movement in Los Angeles 35 years ago. The organization’s volunteers have planted 2,000,000 trees and educated thousands of children about the environment. Fifteen years ago, Lipkis decided it was time for the organization to expand its mission toward restoration of nature in Los Angeles and began to research the L.A. ecosystem. TreePeople created T.R.E.E.S. – Transagency Resources for Environmental and Economic Sustainability. The project involves installing a citywide system across Los Angeles of cisterns and infiltrators to help capture water runoff and recharge the aquifer -- the way a mature oak tree functions. This innovative project also reduces the amount of pollution that reaches creeks, rivers and oceans.

TreePeople now work in partnership with local city and county public works agencies, including L.A. Department of Water and Power. They have established demonstration projects throughout the Los Angeles area. Lipkis and TreePeople have worked tirelessly to develop this partnership. The first point of intervention in L.A. business as usual was when the Corp of Engineers proposed the levee project and one-third of a billion dollars needed to fund it. From the research TreePeople had conducted, Lipkis knew that restoring the natural water-collecting ecosystem would make more sense than adding more concrete to solve the flooding problem.

The storm water management system Lipkis proposed involved creating urban forests throughout the city. The system would slow down the flow of storm water and capture much needed water to reduce the billions of dollars Los Angeles spends on transporting water from other parts of the country. Lipkis met much resistance as he presented the plan to one agency after another. “The response from government agencies was slow and resistant at first,” Lipkis recalls. “They thought agencies would never work together and the project would cost too much for a single purpose issue.”

Lipkis had to convince decision makers that storm water management was a multi-purpose issue and realized, to get the project approved, he would need to get government agencies to work together and see how their territories overlapped.

Lipkis’ diligent and persistent effort eventually convined the Forest Service to provide a $150,000 grant to research the technical and economic viability of the plan. This grant had to be matched by the city and, over a period of several years, triggered $1 million in funding. Funding continues to grow.

The Open Charter Elementary School is the site of one of the T.R.E.E.S. demonstration projects. The $500,000 water capture and treatment project includes: a water treatment device; a 110,000 gallon cistern that stores rainwater and feeds the irrigation system; and a system of trees, vegetation and mulched swales that slows, filters and safely channels the rainwater through the campus.

The project has transformed a 6 ¾ -acre campus from a “hardscape” of blacktopped surfaces that increased temperatures and glare, to a landscape of trees, grassy playing fields, shrubs and native grasses. Before the transformation of the campus, rainwater flowed over roofs and parking lots, picking up sediment, garbage and oil drippings from busses and cars. The polluted water ran into the storm drain, down Ballona Creek and to the Santa Monica Bay beaches. Now the treatment unit captures pollutants before the water flows into the cistern. Water quality, air quality and quality of life for faculty and students have improved with this project.

Conducting the project on school campuses provides an opportunity to educate children about the environment. Children participate as ecology system managers. TreePeople offers a curriculum that spans kindergarten through 12th grade helps children learn empowerment and individual responsibility.

“They are encouraged to identify problems and make a plan to solve them,” Lipkis says. “We ask, ‘What if you were in charge of the ecosystem?’ This let’s them see they actually have the power to design things and speak up,” he adds.

The greatest obstacle Lipkis had to overcome in his quest to make the Sustainability Project a reality in Los Angeles was the disintegration of agencies. “Almost all the problems we encountered involved personalities and cooperation rather than technical problems,” Lipkis says. He explains that it was important to help agencies realize they do related work and how much more effective they could be if they worked together.

The Sustainability Model Lipkis suggests calls for cities to move from disintegration, which leads to duplication of efforts and imposes unsustainable practices, toward integration which offers multiple solutions, creates jobs and liberates funding for emerging green technologies.

For example: when the three agencies responsible for storm water pollution, water supply and flood control work separately, there is too much waste water, too much flood water and a need to find new sources of water to maintain the L.A. water supply. When they work together, watershed management provides a new water source, improves water quality, reduces runoff and prevents flooding.

Courageous leadership is required to embrace and implement a city-wide sustainability project. “We need to begin to look and ask: What are our problems in managing the city as an ecosystem,” Lipkis says. “How do we manage air quality, water and waste issues?” He suggests that cities treat the destruction of ecosystems as an emergency and come together to deal with it. “Create a situation room or an emergency command center and bring departments together to look at environmental problems.” Lipkis advices that the city’s mayor lead the effort to bring departments together, and to work with county, state and non-governmental agencies.

The public can play a huge role in get the city to take action as the volunteers working with TreePeople have demonstrated. “The public must identify where out-dated practices waste funds and demand that wasteful action stop.”

Benefits from the work Lipkis and TreePeople have done are being realized. In 2004, L.A. voters approved a proposition that calls for funding many of the T.R.E.E. inspired technologies and solutions to be implemented.

For more information, go to www.treepeople.org.