The Los Angeles Reservoir looks like a giant ball pit.
The city poured 96 million, black, four-inch plastic balls over the surface of its 175-acre reservoir earlier this week - the first city in the country to use shade balls to preserve its water sources, officials said.
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“By reducing evaporation, these shade balls will conserve 300 million gallons of water each year,” Garcetti told ABC station KABC. “Instead of just evaporating into the sky, that’s 300 million gallons to fight this drought.”
The shade balls can last about 10 years before the LA Department of Water and Power will remove, recycle and replace them, KABC reported.
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The city was able to purchase each plastic shade ball for 36 cents each, costing the city far less than its initial $300 million estimate to cover the reservoir, according to officials.
