Pulling The Grass At City Facilities
June 5,2015-
This week the Visalia City Council took the first dramatic step to reduce irrigation of turf around Visalia at city-owned properties or city-sponsored landscape districts. In response to the governor’s mandate to reduce the city’s water use by 32% the council voted to move forward on the following steps
1. Eliminate, or significantly reduce, irrigation of decorative turf in public areas that have
minimal public use, but continue to irrigate park areas and sports fields/play areas
that are most actively used by the public for recreation, and continue to irrigate trees
and shrubs with water efficient nozzles.
2. Appropriate $40,000 from Landscape and Lighting District budget and $40,000
from the General Fund to remove or reconfigure irrigation and landscaping of
the turfed areas in the City’s Landscape and Lighting Districts, medians, parkways,
parks and other City controlled turf areas.
Reductions would be made to around 35 miles of landscaping along city streets, more than 121 acres of landscape and lighting districts, more than half of which are turf.
3. Direct staff to bring an emergency ordinance to the June 15 City Council meeting to
change the City’s Water Conservation Ordinance to reflect many of the changes
proposed by the City’s water provider, California Water Service (Cal Water), so the
community can meet the 32% reduction mandate.
The city will no longer have turf a the following locations with turf listed by square feet:
• Airport………………………………………………………………………. 28,908
• City Hall West ……………………………………………………………. 24,840
• City Hall East ………………………………………………………………. 1,650
• Convention Center……………………………………………………… 17,616
• Fire Station 54 …………………………………………………………….. 3,522
• Fire Station 55 …………………………………………………………… 13,800
• Library ……………………………………………………………………. 104,544
• North Police Sub- Station ……………………………………………… 1,120
Senior Center ……………………………………………………………… 1,220
While it’s difficult to quantify how much water consumption will be reduced by implementing the work plan, City staff says they are certain these actions will substantially reduce water usage, and some measures such as not irrigating turf in street medians are required by the Governor’s mandate.