BUSD taking advantage of new irrigation controllers

The Bonsall Unified School District took advantage of a Metropolitan Water District of Southern California rebate program to replace its 13 irrigation controllers with programmable irrigation controllers at no direct cost to the school district.

MWD has a Public Agency Landscape rebate program, and the PAL rebate was used to fund the $33,439.12 cost to upgrade the irrigation controllers on the sites of the district administration building, the Bonsall Community Center, Bonsall Elementary School, Bonsall West Elementary School, and the campus which includes Sullivan Middle School and Bonsall High School. The installation of those new controllers was completed the last week of September.

One other irrigation controller is used for Vivian Banks Charter School, and issues regarding ownership of the land (the school is on Catholic church property within the Pala Indian reservation) and the use of well water rather than MWD supply have forced further review prior to a potential replacement.

"That was to increase the efficacy," said BUSD superintendent Justin Cunningham. "They were all for the saving of water. We're doing everything we can to be as drought-resistant as we can."

The San Diego County Water Authority is one of MWD's member agencies, and the Rainbow Municipal Water District is one of the SDCWA member agencies. On June 8, the BUSD board voted 5-0 to approve a proposal from Weathermatic to provide and install Smartlink irrigation controllers and to provide training to BUSD maintenance staff.