[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 8/14/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

August 14, 2008

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People –

 

 

 

Smart water: New, more efficient devices sense when to turn off.

The Fresno Bee- 8/13/08

 

L.A. 'Drought-Buster' law starts Thursday

KABC Channel 7 Los Angeles- 8/13/08

 

Embracing the Golden State's brown: Replacing grass with fake turf won't do. Californians should let their thirsty lawns go dry.

The Los Angeles Times- 8/14/08

 

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Smart water: New, more efficient devices sense when to turn off.

The Fresno Bee- 8/13/08

By Dennis Pollock

 

We've all seen it before: It's an autumn day, the lawn is already soggy as the sprinklers do their thing and water runs down the street.

 

It's the curse of the automatic sprinkler system that simply doesn't know how wet the lawn is and when enough is enough.

 

Now there's a solution. "Smart controllers" are being used increasingly by homeowners, golf course operators, farmers and others to save water and money.

 

And the Center for Irrigation Technology at California State University, Fresno, is playing a pivotal role that could result in the technology being adopted more universally -- testing and studying various water-control devices for the Irrigation Association, a national industry group.

 

Funding also comes from the California State University Agricultural Research Initiative.

 

At www.irrigation.org, you can find 14 "smart water application technologies (SWAT)" that were tested at the center.

 

"We don't recommend any particular brand. We don't say, 'Buy a Chevy or a Honda,' " said Diganta Adhikari, a database analyst with the center. "But we present the data on them so people can make their own choices."

 

Adhikari said some of the systems use sensors placed in the ground to determine moisture levels. Another technology gauges evapotranspiration and automatically adjusts irrigation run times based on inputs that include rainfall, current temperature and historic water use. Once control is turned over to the devices, Adhikari said, there is no need for human intervention.

 

Center director David Zoldoske said the devices can cut water use by between 30% and 40%. They're particularly effective when used in late summer or early fall when rains come and users don't change electronic timers on their sprinkler systems, he said.

 

Zoldoske said the devices are being used for landscaping at the Claude Laval Water and Energy Technology Incubator on campus and for the Campus Pointe commercial development. They're also being tried on the campus farming operation.

 

Ed Norum, an engineering consultant, said reducing runoff is also important.

 

"Runoff water has to be treated, and it's a huge expense for a municipality," he said. "This has great promise -- for saving water and that kind of nuisance."

 

Norum said the devices had been around for a while, but they recently have become more affordable and easier to operate.

 

"I liken it to automatic cameras," he said. "Years ago, a person had to go to photography school. Now the quality is engineered into the product."

 

Adhikari said smart systems that used to cost $3,000 or $4,000 are now about $500. For a typical homeowner, the cost for a good system would be about $300, he said. Some start as low as $80.

 

Adhikari said growers with the California Avocado Commission have joined the Rancho California Water District and an irrigation company to study the use of the company's smart controller to conserve water in avocado groves.

 

Some growers are wary of turning over total control of their irrigation systems to a mechanized controller. Many use the systems to gather data and then make the call on how much to water.

 

"One thing an automatic system can't do is watch the news and figure what the weather will be doing in three days," said Bill Mueller, who uses the devices in his Delano-area almond orchard. "It can't play catch-up."

 

Joe O'Brien, a crop consultant in Fresno, Tulare and Kern counties, said that if farmers "cut it too close, there's an economic loss. But if a guy's lawn gets dry for a day or so, it may just look bad for a while."

 

The systems are being used nationwide.

 

Dave Littler, who uses the technology on his lawn in Castle Rock, Colo., said it "has never been as healthy" as it is now.

"Our worst water savings was 17% in a month. The best was 22%," he said.

 

A rebate from the city helped lower the cost.

 

Kevin Holyoak, grounds superintendent for the Washington County School District in St. George, Utah, uses smart controllers on his job and at his house.

 

"We saw water savings right off the bat -- it's dramatic," he said. "Our costs are down 30% to 40%."

 

Ivy Munion, an irrigation consultant in Livermore, said old technology was cumbersome. "You had to recalibrate it. Before, you had to be an agronomist," she said. "Now it's easier for the general homeowner."#

http://www.fresnobee.com/business/story/796742.html

 

 

 

L.A. 'Drought-Buster' law starts Thursday

KABC Channel 7 Los Angeles- 8/13/08

By Subha Ravindhran

 

TOLUCA LAKE, Calif. (KABC) -- One of toughest water restrictions in the nation is about to become the law of the land in Los Angeles. The penalty is stiff if you violate it. It's called the "Drought-Buster" plan.

 

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to sign this new water-usage ordinance into law Thursday, which means more than a million DWP customers in Los Angeles will soon have to change their habits when it comes to watering their lawns, washing their cars, and even ordering water to drink at restaurants.

 

At Paty's Restaurant in Toluca Lake, workers are not looking forward to the new water usage law, which says give a customer a glass of water without asking -- face a fine.

 

"We have enough things to worry about keeping business going and making sure we give good service, and now we have to worry about asking people if they want water," said Bob Greene, manager of Paty's Restaurant.

 

The Department of Water and Power says the new requirement is part of a 20-year water conservation plan introduced by the city of Los Angeles. In 10 days, restaurants will no longer be able to serve water without a customer requesting it.

 

Hotels must give guests the option of reusing their towels and linens, and residents will have some new rules when it comes to watering their lawns.

 

Sprinklers must be off between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., and they can only be on 15 minutes per day. Violators will first be warned; the second offense will result in a $100 fine. Commercial customers will have to pay $200.

 

"I think that's perfectly fair," said Toluca Lake resident Toni Perling. "We do live in the desert and we forget that, but we need to be water-wise, so I think it's excellent."

 

Residents will also no longer be able to use a hose to wash off driveways and sidewalks, and if you're washing your car, you can only use a hose with an automatic shut-off nozzle.

 

City leaders say they've had several restrictions like this in place for years, but this is the first time fines will be enforced.

 

For many, the changes will not be a big deal.

 

"This is no different than what they did about 20 years ago when they started this," said Granada Hills resident Ralph Walters.

 

"I've been asking for 20 years when I want water, so this is nothing new."

 

The DWP says they'll be enforcing these new water laws with uniformed Drought-Buster officers that will show up to your home or business if you've been reported. The first offense is just a warning, but repeated offenses could cost you up to $600.#

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local&id=6326603

 

 

 

Embracing the Golden State's brown: Replacing grass with fake turf won't do. Californians should let their thirsty lawns go dry.

The Los Angeles Times- 8/14/08

By Patt Morrison

Bless her, Jean Orban was only trying to be a good neighbor and a good citizen.

The vivid green grass in front of her pretty ranch house in Garden Grove? It was fake. Big deal.

Fake meant that her husband didn't have to mow it. Fake meant they didn't have to pay for the water to keep it as green as Oz.

So how was she to know that artificial grass was banned in Garden Grove?

This story starts out like one of those plucky little guy versus city hall tales we news folk love. Orban is a child of the Depression, and to that generation, waste is tantamount to sin. "Our governor says we need to save water," she told The Times fervently.

After she installed her artificial lawn, she duly filed for a $300 rebate from the Orange County Municipal Water District, which offers the dough to the civic-minded because artificial lawns save cascades of water.

That's how she found that, water district be damned, Garden Grove had banned fake grass since 1991. So do four other O.C. cities. Orban not only wouldn't be getting her rebate, she might have to pay a fine for her fake greensward.

Now, this is the point in the dramatic arc of heartwarming news stories where the city is supposed to apologize to Orban. Garden Grove and those other cities are rethinking their bans, given the drought. And the Metropolitan Water District, which serves 17 million people in Southern California (a lot of them in L.A.) is offering a bounty of 30 cents a square foot for putting in fake grass for apartment complexes and street medians. So surely, the story would go, the city fathers and mothers would be planning a photo op with Orban on her green plastic lawn, everybody grinning and gripping a great big cardboard check for that $300 rebate.

That may yet happen. But it shouldn't. The cities shouldn't rethink their fake-turf bans, and the MWD should rethink its bounty. Artificial grass solves one problem -- wasting water -- but it creates a different one.

Cities are already miserable hot spots. Every inch that we pave over, even with plastic grass, creates a patch of unnatural heat. The virtue of a grass lawn -- however thirsty -- is that it is a living system that helps the land keep its cool. It also allows what rain we do get to make its way into the soil, and the water table, not into the storm drains.

StuartGaffin makes a study of "urban heat islands" at the best place in the country to do it -- New York City. He's an associate research scientist at Columbia University. He's studied the fake turf on playing fields, and when the air temperature hits 80 degrees, it can be 160 or 170 degrees on the turf. Even when it's only 50 degrees out, direct sun can heat fake grass to 150 degrees. Sounds like you might as well tell your kids to go outside and play on a griddle.

"I don't see why a suburban homeowner would like [it] around their house," he told me. "You're essentially putting a parking lot around your house." And some of what you save in water costs, you may wind up paying in the air-conditioning bill to cool your place down from the heat generated by the fake grass.

At best, plastic lawns add up to a little something gained here, a little bit lost there. Why not make a real trade-off, a big one? Why not go native? Declare that brown is the new green.

This is California. Brown is one of our seasons. The sere, fallow contrast of high summer and fall, against the lavish recompense of early rain and spring.

In the autumn of 1907, a New York reporter journeyed west to visit the renowned California poet Joaquin Miller. Together, they gazed out over the bare hills surrounding San Francisco Bay. "I am very fond of this brown period," Miller remarked, "and the brown hills, my 'tawny lions,' as I call them."

Let's embrace the brown.

As Garden Grove rethinks its artificial-grass ban, I suggest that it set an example by taking another look at its ban on what the city's Planning Services manager, Karl Hill, kindly detailed for me: the "use of rocks, pebbles, redwood chips, and stones ... in lieu of live plant material."

There are handsome gardens made of rocks, pebbles, redwood chips and stones, and of year-round drought-tolerant plants (some of which are sturdily, durably green). Orban's house could turn into the model home for the rest of us.

But she'll need some company. After I checked out her place on Microsoft's Virtual Earth, I took a gander at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's home in Brentwood: Lotta green grass there -- and I don't think it's fake -- too much for a governor who is reminding all of us to save water.

Governor, convince us all that going green really means going brown. Lead by example, posing with the first lady as "California Gothic" -- smiling, not stern, holding a California native plant seedling, in front of your grass-free, beautifully xeriscaped Haus Schwarzenegger.#

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/la-oe-morrison14-2008aug14,0,5538510.column

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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