Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
The San Diego County Water Authority’s approval of the CWA 2005-06 and 2006-07 budget included $100,000 of funding to develop a water conservation garden in North County. The location and even the form is yet to be determined, but the initial conservation garden at Cuyamaca College has been successful.
“It’s a long way to travel just to go to a garden, but if people are going south for the weekend it’s a quick trip to Rancho San Diego,” said Fallbrook Public Utility District General Manager Keith Lewinger.
Cuyamaca College is approximately 15 to 20 minutes east of Downtown San Diego. Lewinger makes the trip at least once a month, as the County Water Authority representative to the conservation garden board of which he is the chair.
The garden is a joint powers authority operation with representatives from the CWA, the City of San Diego, the Otay Water District, the Helix Water District, the Padre Dam Municipal Water District and Cuyamaca College comprising the six-member board. The title of director, although not in a board capacity, is also bestowed upon garden director Marty Eberhardt.
“When people think of water conservation in San Diego County, they sometimes think of it as deprivation,” Eberhardt said. “That’s the image that we’re trying to get away from.”
What is known as xeriscape, or landscaping with drought-tolerant plants, was put into garden form in 1999 after planning which began in the mid-1990s. “The garden was the brainchild of meetings that we were having during the drought about what we could do to lessen the impact of future droughts,” said Lewinger, who was the general manager of the Otay Water District before taking the position as FPUD’s general manager in 1999. “We got the idea of building a garden and then we approached Cuyamaca College to see if they had property available.”
Cuyamaca College provided nearly four and one-half acres, while the initial two water districts involved, Otay and Helix, agreed to fund construction, operation and maintenance.
“Helix and Otay did a fabulous job of putting the money toward the garden and creating it,” said Eberhardt, who joined the garden staff in 2004.
The three other water agencies later joined the joint powers authority.
“Conserved water is the cheapest water of all,” said Fred Thompson, the City of San Diego representative to the conservation garden board. “The less water we use, the less we have to buy.”
In Lewinger’s district approximately half of all water is sold to agricultural customers and irrigation accounts for a considerable amount of outdoor water usage. In Thompson’s Mission Hills neighborhood, most of the outdoor usage is applied toward yards. Approximately 60 percent of water is used outside.
“I think we’re seeing more and more emphasis placed on outdoor conservation,” Lewinger said. “I think there’s huge bang for our buck in spending money on conservation.”
Even if the outdoor usage is closer to 50 percent, a ten-percent reduction in outdoor water usage would equate to a five-percent reduction in total demand. The CWA currently supplies approximately 600,000 acre feet of water annually (an acre foot equates to approximately 326,000 gallons), so a five-percent reduction would
conserve 30,000 acre feet. The capacity of the Red Mountain Reservoir is approximately 14,000 acre feet.
“They not only will conserve water by doing their landscape in this manner, but they’re going to save money on their water bills,” Lewinger said.
Eberhardt adds that water conservation also reduces runoff, which has also led to a Clean Water Champion award for the garden. “What I’m hoping that we can do is turn around this idea of water conservation as something of an unpleasant necessity,” she said.
The garden contains approximately 10,000 different plants and trees covering approximately 420 different species. In addition to the garden itself, the conservation garden has five to six adult education programs per month, tours and classes for young children. In addition to plant selection, the garden also teaches mulching, maintenance and irrigation.
“What we need to do is create programs,” Eberhardt said. “Our real goal here is to serve people of all ages.”
The conservation garden does not sell nursery products itself; Cuyamaca College has a nursery in which plants are sold and garden visitors are referred to the college’s nursery. “We’re all in the same game here,” Thompson said about not competing with any existing nurseries. “Without water, we’re dead.”
The garden has a gift shop, and one of the most popular items is a set of playing cards. Each of the cards has a photograph of one of the low-water plants or trees, and two supplemental two-sided cards provide the height and width, the season and the form of vegetation for each of the plants and trees featured in the deck.
The playing cards were Thompson’s idea, although Thompson notes that his idea came from the Department of Defense playing cards issued to troops in Iraq with pictures of wanted enemy leaders on each card. “They’ve captured 48 of the 52,” Thompson noted.
The other four enemy leaders may have been killed, but Thompson believes that the soldiers became familiar with the other 48 faces through the playing cards. “They’re looking at these faces,” Thompson said. “When they see one they grab them.”
In Iraq, where little outside entertainment is available to United States troops, playing cards is a common activity among off-duty soldiers. Thompson notes the advantages of providing playing cards to the American public.
“If they get a deck of cards they use them for 20 years. They’re not going to throw a deck of cards away,” Thompson said. “They’re going to play with them until they wear out.”
Since the conservation garden cards are coated with plastic, they won’t wear out easily. The Helix Water District’s public affairs staff was responsible for creating the cards and taking the photographs of the trees and plants on the cards.
Unlike brochures which may be filed or thrown away, cards are used, allowing the card players to become familiar with the plants. Playing cards can also be used by different age groups for poker, go fish, blackjack, war, gin rummy, bridge and various other games.
“I would say they are one successful program that we have,” Eberhardt said.
Lewinger notes that the playing cards are a source of revenue for the garden as well as a way to promote water-conserving landscape. “The playing cards, I think, were a great idea,” he said.
Not all of the cards are sold to garden visitors. “The cards have been successful largely because we have been able to get some wholesale orders from water districts,” Eberhardt said.
“A lot of water districts use them as prizes and giveaways in their school programs or as a thank-you gift,” Lewinger said.
Some districts, according to Lewinger, also use them as rewards for customers. Thompson proposes that water agencies should give a deck of cards to customers who save water over the previous year. “I think that all of the agencies in San Diego should buy thousands and thousands of these cards,” he said.
Eberhardt noted that the cards are small, portable, and inexpensive. “They could be a valuable tool,” she said in response to the possibility of a North County conservation garden.
Not all of the 23,000 visitors patronize the gift shop or buy cards, but that number translates to a 20 percent increase in visitors over a one-year period. Membership has increased 400 percent in a year’s time. “People are interested,” Eberhardt said.
“It is serving the purpose for which we built it,” Lewinger said of the conservation garden.
Eberhardt acknowledges that a North County location will be necessary to attract North County residents to a conservation garden. “They do have to be accessible. We really can’t expect people from Fallbrook to come down here,” she said.
The CWA has created an ad hoc committee to look at existing and potential future conservation efforts and how those potential options will fit into the CWA’s overall goals and plans. “They’re going to look at all kinds of options,” Lewinger said.
The garden options include a new garden, an addition to an existing garden, a demonstration facility and a technical facility. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be a garden, but when we in San Diego County use in excess of half of our water for irrigating our outdoor landscaping there’s a huge opportunity to cut into our water demand,” Lewinger said. “If a facility that promoted outdoor water conservation were built in North County, I believe it would be advantageous to the residents of North County.”
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