Yard & Landscape Drainage in Lake Elsinore

Yard & Landscape Drainage questions from Lake Elsinore customers

Why does my Lake Elsinore yard stay soggy when it barely rains here?

NOAA's 1991–2020 normals for the Elsinore station total 11.65 inches a year, and roughly 90 percent of that falls November through April — the August normal is 0.06 inch and June's is 0.07. The city's own stormwater ordinance lists landscape, garden and lawn irrigation among the non-stormwater discharges it exempts, which is a reminder that summer water on a Lake Elsinore lawn is applied water, not weather.

Does runoff from my yard actually reach Lake Elsinore?

The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board's basin plan amendment describes Lake Elsinore as essentially the terminus of the San Jacinto River watershed, and sets nutrient limits for total nitrogen and total phosphorus, which impair the lake's warm freshwater aquatic life and recreational beneficial uses. Urban discharges, including stormwater runoff from cities in the watershed, are identified as a regulated source under MS4 permits.

How much water is the street in front of my house designed to carry?

Lake Elsinore's drainage standards set the condition streets are designed to: discharge for a 10-year frequency storm centered between the tops of curbs, and for a 25-year storm centered within the street right-of-way. Local drainage is designed for a 25-year storm and sump areas for a 50-year storm. That is the system any yard drainage outlet is being added onto.

Is my yard problem local, or is water arriving from somewhere else in Lake Elsinore?

The city lists its flood-water sources as Arroyo del Toro, the Outlet Channel, Leach Canyon and Lime Street Channels, Lake Elsinore itself, McVicker Canyon, Ortega Wash and Channel, Rice Canyon, the San Jacinto River, Temescal Wash and Wasson Canyon Creek. Its General Plan EIR notes that flooding generated in McVicker Canyon becomes sheet flow across the alluvial fan below the canyon mouth.

What does landscape drainage repair involve on a Lake Elsinore lot?

Finding where the water enters and where it can leave, then choosing what carries it. In Lake Elsinore the outlet is governed: the City's stormwater ordinance counts streets, curbs and gutters as part of the storm drain system and treats an unpermitted connection as an illegal connection, and the City adopted the County's road standards, which include a private drain through curb. The Lake Elsinore guide on this site explains where water may legally go.

My Lake Elsinore lot is on a steep hillside. Does the fix change?

Yes. The City's General Plan describes Country Club Heights as a district of steep slopes, with many lots over 25 percent grade, reached by roads that range from unpaved tracks to single-lane pavement. On ground like that, catching the water above the lot, before the steepest run, matters more than a drain at the bottom, which is reasoning from the grade. Slope stability and erosion are a separate question.