VX Excerpt: Beyond Watershed Planning – Engaging Communities to Improve Outcomes of the LA County’s “Safe Clean Water Program”
As stormwater capture becomes Los Angeles County's principal strategy for managing flood risk, water quality, and local supply, the question of whether Measure W dollars are being deployed at watershed scale – or project by project – has become central to the program's next decade. VX News here excerpts Beyond Watershed Planning, Los Angeles Waterkeeper's assessment of the LA County Flood Control District's Safe Clean Water Program, drawn from five community workshops across four watersheds, which finds the $280-million-a-year program too reactive in structure and recommends a proactive 20-year investment cycle, clearer metrics, stronger greening targets, and deeper community and Tribal engagement. See full report here.
“SCWP Regional Program projects tend toward a siloed approach that lacks a holistic view of each watershed and how each project addresses regional needs”
Executive Summary
In the eight years since Los Angeles voters approved Measure W, the LA County Flood Control District has successfully launched the Safe Clean Water Program (SCWP). The program collects approximately $280M every year and distributes those funds to support stormwater capture projects that can reduce flooding, improve regional water quality, recharge groundwater, and provide a variety of benefits for communities and wildlife. To date, the SCWP has funded 473 projects, studies, concepts, and program activities through its regional, municipal, and district programs. The program takes an adaptive management approach to ensure funds are invested effectively and that supported projects deliver meaningful reductions in flood risk while providing appropriate treatment of local stormwater. This approach also ensures funds are leveraged to provide the most potential benefits for every dollar spent. As part of that effort, the SCWP developed a watershed planning process in 2024 with the goal of maximizing potential benefits in each of the county’s nine watersheds. Los Angeles Waterkeeper secured funding to conduct five community workshops to further inform the watershed planning process moving forward. The purpose of these workshops was to ensure that individuals and organizations who are well informed about the on-the-ground needs and priorities of communities throughout LA County had the opportunity to provide input to the watershed plans. LA Waterkeeper partnered with community-based organizations in each of the areas where the workshops were held to invite priority participants, although all workshops were open to the public. A detailed methodology of the structure of these workshops is included in Appendix A.
Key Findings
Structured, facilitated activities at each of the workshops yielded seven priority findings for SCWP staff to consider as they continue to refine the program.
The SCWP is complex, and ongoing dialogue is necessary to ensure benefits are maximized over time.
SCWP Regional Program projects tend toward a siloed approach that lacks a holistic view of each watershed and how each project addresses regional needs.
The annual funding cycle creates structural challenges that favor mid-scale projects over large-scale and community-driven projects.
Despite the ordinance allowing for a broad mix of projects including land acquisition, Regional Program scoring criteria lead to a narrow scope of project types being funded.
The SCWP prioritizes water quality over other needs.
New green space creation targets, especially schoolyard greening, are inadequate.
The SCWP is too reactive as currently structured.
Feedback from workshop participants also identified additional findings worthy of further exploration and consideration by SCWP staff. These include:
Measuring achievement is only as strong as metrics and definitions allow.
Watershed Coordinators need more support and resources.
The SCWP Regional Program application process is too technical, preventing smaller municipalities and CBOs from successfully applying for funding.
SCWP scoring criteria do not sufficiently address ecological health and biodiversity.
Community engagement should be required and measured in project applications.
The SCWP fails to leverage Traditional Ecological Knowledge and falls short on outreach to Tribal communities.
In addition to the general findings listed here, this report also includes watershed-specific findings for each of the four watersheds in which the community workshops were held.
Recommendations
Based on the feedback and findings garnered at these community workshops, Los Angeles Waterkeeper has identified four priority recommendations that, together, will lead to a more effective SCWP with better outcomes for all LA County residents.
The SCWP should:
Move toward a proactive watershed planning approach and develop a 20-year investment cycle that identifies priority projects or project types that collectively will meet watershed-specific community and environmental goals.
Improve metrics and definitions throughout the Program to provide more clarity to applicants, allow for more effective measurement of success, and ensure the projects that provide the most benefits are funded.
Strengthen targets for greening and community benefits.
Improve community and Tribal engagement.
The report also includes additional recommendations aimed at maximizing biodiversity benefits to align with other LA County priorities, looking for opportunities to support smaller organizations and municipalities securing SCWP funding, and looking for opportunities to integrate the best available science into the program’s approach for prioritizing project types.
This excerpt has been condensed by VX News from the original report, published in July 2026. For the report's full text, see here.
