Paesta Podcasts

You Asked, We Answered! Trascript of the podcast Hello my name is Amy Ryan and welcome to today’s PAESTA podcast in which we will be discussing what are shade balls and why did Los Angeles drop 96 million of them into their reservoir? Of course, we are all aware of the droughts California has been facing throughout its existence but in particular, throughout the past several years. These droughts of course are affecting California’s freshwater sources, putting the residents in danger with extremely low amounts of drinking water. This is why the government proposed the idea of shade balls. Shade balls by definition are small plastic spheres that float on top of a reservoir for environmental protection and to slow evaporation. On August 12, 2015, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power dropped 96 million shade balls into the Los Angeles Reservoir in order to prevent algae growth and reduce evaporation. [1,2] You may be wondering why the department waited until August of 2015 to dump these