Last night the place to be was the Mar Vista Rec Center, where the first annual Wise Water Use Expo was held. It was a standing-room-only crowd on hand to hear presentations on everything watery — from ways to make your garden more green to how to save water at the faucet.

Kevin O’Donnell, of ThreadCollaborative.com, a sustainable design strategist and presenter for Al Gore’s Climate Project, was on hand with a slide show that borrowed from An Inconvenient Truth, but had been tailored for us in Los Angeles specifically. It was mind-blowing and terrifying. We’re running out of drinkable water, people. It’s being wasted on our lawns, basically. 300 million gallons of water are lost in runoff EVERY DAY in the county of Los Angeles. Every. Day. Doesn’t that make you sick to your stomach? Me, too.

The Green Gardens Group (G3LA) also presented  compelling argument for removing lawns and another slideshow, and then Ed Begley, Jr. told his story of how he’s changed the way he lives in the world to keep things green. He’s awesome and I have a total geek crush on him for his Green Ways.

There were booths set up to learn about collecting rain barrels, cutting driveways, low-flow toilets — it was very informative! And Bill Rosendahl, a Green politician if there ever was one, was there, too. He has chickens, by the way. He’s famous for them.

Kudos to Sherri Akers and Joseph Treves and the Mar Vista Community Council Green Committee for putting on such an important event!