Ocean Beach is addicted to the pipe and in need of intervention. Want proof? Look what happens when it rains hard, as it did early this week. In a conventional stormwater system like the one in place in Ocean Beach, a series of drains and pipes is designed to collect the water and get rid of it as quickly as possible. But in areas like Newport Avenue, rain gushes down roof tops and out of rain gutters that lead to nowhere in particular, bouncing off sidewalks and into streets, overwhelming storm drains and leaving business owners scrambling to lay down sand bags as water spills over and covers the sidewalks. This out-of-control surplus water becomes a toxic soup as it rushes to a storm drain, picking up dog feces, car oil, pesticides, trash, brake linings and anything else it absorbs on its way to the ocean. But a new vision is being developed that could change this scene. Imagine this: street asphalt replaced at strategic intersections with a paving material that actually allows rainwater to soak into the ground before it reaches a storm drain. Or this: take an area in front of a red curb where no cars can park anyway — like the north side of Newport Avenue just west of the Arco gas station. Turn it into a “street garden” with native vegetation that holds water and filters out pollutants. These small projects — the students who came up with them call them “interventions” — reflect a new way of thinking about stormwater collection and means of repellent. The concept is known as low-impact design (LID), and a forum sponsored by San Diego Coastkeeper themed “Signs of the Tide – Put a LID on Pollution” attracted more than 50 people last week at the Electric Ladyland Art and Music Center. It’s an idea that began to take hold in the late 1990s as the link between declining ocean water quality and untreated stormwater became increasingly apparent, said Gabriel Solmer, advocacy director of San Diego Coastkeeper. “Along came a new, old idea: mimicking Mother Nature so we can retain that stormwater and not let it run off,” Solmer said. It was Coastkeeper that sought out the NewSchool of Architecture and Design to work with the Ocean Beach MainStreet Association and develop a real-world project, said Leslie Ryan, the founding chair of the school’s landscape architecture program. Ocean Beach makes for an ideal location for a project because it sits at the western edge of the San Diego River watershed, and Newport Avenue itself is a “micro-watershed” that runs all the way east to the top of the hill at Venice Street and feeds directly into the ocean and the river, Ryan said. San Diego is by no means lagging in LID, but neither is it a leader, said Bill Harris of the city’s Transportation and Storm Water Department. Many other cities make much greater use of rain barrels, planted roofs, cisterns and reused stormwater. But a handful of pilot projects here have shown promise, Harris said. In La Jolla’s Kellogg Park, for instance, stormwater entering the beach from the parking lot has been reduced because of the installation of permeable pavement and bioswales, which can be thought of a “great big ditch” lined with grass and surrounded by native plants, said 10News weatherman Robert Santos, who moderated the forum. Next year, the city will begin offering rebates for rain barrel purchases, Harris said. For more information, call (619) 758-7743, or visit www.sdcoastkeeper.org.