Los Angeles has coated its reservoirs in millions of black plastic balls. But why are they a heat-absorbing black instead of light-reflecting white? Because they’re shade balls, and their ...

Over several months, city officials have been unleashing 96 million black plastic balls into the city's 175-acre reservoir in an effort to fight the effects of California's drought. The final ...

Today, "shade balls" got their moment in the sun. On Monday afternoon, the 20,000 black plastic balls tumbled down the slopes of Los Angeles Reservoir, joining 95,980,000 of their brethren already ...

Experts differed over the best color for the tiny plastic ... for the black-ball cover is to avoid steep Environmental Protection Agency fines. The federal agency's "Long-Term 2 Enhanced Surface ...

Reports of mysterious "shade balls" in Los Angeles reservoirs have been bobbing to the surface. But the black plastic spheres are there for a reason. Partially filled with water, they are now ...

What do you get when you tip 96 million black plastic balls into a reservoir? A money-saving system that maintains water quality, according to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power dropped the ball Monday. Actually, it dropped 400,000 of them. The agency started dumping thousands of floating plastic balls into Ivanhoe Reservoir ...

During the past couple years, cities across the state have dumped millions of “shade balls” — black, plastic balls weighted down with water — into their reservoirs. The result is a ...