NPR reports recently that 20,000 black plastic balls were dropped down the slopes of Los Angeles Reservoir, joining 95,980,000 of their brethren already covering the surface of the water.  The effort is the final deployment of shade balls in a $34.5 million water quality protection project aimed at preventing evaporation and algae growth in the reservoir, according to NPR.  The EPA mandates that all reservoirs be covered, but because tarps and metal covering can be expensive and difficult to maintain and install, shade balls are the method being used to conserve as much as 300 million gallons of water in this single reservoir each year.  >Read More