Many of you have heard about the broken water main in Los Angeles, which spouted a 30-foot geyser into the air and flooded Sunset Boulevard and UCLA with more than 20 million gallons of water.
It happened in the middle of one of California's worst droughts ever.
People all around are lamenting the loss of water like a best friend. "Twenty million gallons," they moan.
I'm not here to downplay the severity of that incident, but I do want to put things into perspective.
Twenty million gallons is nothing compared to what most communities use on their landscape irrigation alone.
We've saved many of our clients that much water and up to five times more, simply by upgrading their irrigation systems and converting their landscape to a more drought tolerant variety.
We saved the Oso Valley Greenbelt Association 108 million gallons of water that resulted in a two-year cost savings of more than $251,000 to the community.
And that's just one community among hundreds within Orange County alone.
The average golf course can use up to one million gallons of water per week to keep its fairways green.
Twenty million gallons is 20 weeks of irrigation at a golf course, or, if the average family consumes 200,000 gallons of water per year, it is the total water consumption for 100 families for one year.
A UCLA study released in June, (yes, we see the irony...), said outdoor water use accounts for 54 percent of single-family residential water use in our region. The study urged water agencies to raise their rates, noting that water use has only dropped by 5 percent, compared to the 20 percent advisory issued by the governor.
Everyone clearly needs to do their part, and it should start with our irrigation and landscaping. Clearly, the biggest impact will come from the biggest water users: community associations, industrial parks, business and commercial complexes, and golf courses.
It's not all bad. Conserving water can also save you money. And that's a good thing. Contact us to find out how much you could save.
