(Mission Valley News, San Diego, CA) – Balboa Park is becoming “water wise” and it wants everyone to know it.
Friends of Balboa Park, the non-profit committed to preserving the 1,200-acre urban park’s legacy for future generations, has launched the “Roadmap to Water-wise Parkland in Balboa Park: Optimizing Water Use by 2020.”
A major initiative focused on optimizing water management in the park in the heart of San Diego with its 15 museums, the San Diego Zoo, restaurants, gardens and riding and hiking trails, the roadmap creates a national and international water-wise model.
Consisting of a series of proposed projects that will ultimately optimize water usage, the roadmap projects are sequenced into a timeline by whether they are short-term (2012-2013), midterm (2014-2015) or long-term (2016-2020).
Friends’ chairman Jim Hughes said the roadmap creation was spurred by the region’s water crisis and drought conditions as well as a City of San Diego directive that all city parks trim water usage by 15 percent.
“That gave a lot of people indigestion because of the park’s being 100 years old and because it could not sustain such a dramatic cut,” Hughes said. “So we started coming up with a plan to save water.”
Noting water management in such a large park is a “very complex undertaking,” Hughes said it was something which had to be done to safeguard the short- and long-term health of the second-largest park in the city with the most trees known worldwide for its gardens and landscaping.
The water-wise roadmap covers these areas:
• Smartscaping: Optimizing ecological features, e.g., flora, fauna, land terrain/drainage, sun/shade patterns, soil composition, and the provision of water.
• Documentation: Mapping of existing water infrastructure along with measuring water use through audits and technology.
• Water Delivery: Employing improved irrigation methods; Capturing/reclaiming water for re-use in irrigation.
• Eco-tourism and Eco-education: Providing passive and active programs for visitors, students, and staff integrated under the umbrella of the “Balboa Park Center for H2O Experience.”
• Program Management: Keeping the initiative integrated, updated, evaluated, and communicated.
Laurie Broedling, program manager for Balboa Park’s water-wise program, said the intent of the roadmap is to “find ways to use water more efficiently.”
“Optimizing water use has a whole bunch of dimensions, such as planting the park in a more sensible way with native and drought-tolerant plants where appropriate,” she said.
Broedling said Balboa Park presently has two major problems with water conservation: It uses only potable (drinkable) water, and it employs a sprinkler system that is wasteful because it allows water to evaporate or runoff.
“Acres of water in the park right now are just being dumped into the sewer and water drains,” she said. “We’re implementing state-of-the-art methods for saving water, using cutting-edge technologies, throughout the park.”
Formulating the roadmap involved assembling experts in water management, sustainability and related skills to build a new conservation model. This model also required involving key stakeholders who will have primary management responsibility to oversee the execution of the projects including staff from the city’s Park and Recreation Department.
Hughes said seed money in the water-wise project has gone into installing a more-efficient, computer-driven irrigation control system within the park.
“We’re hoping to become a water-wise model that can be adopted anywhere,” said Hughes noting a group of about 30 water experts, including San Diego State University professors, were recruited for the water-conservation project.
“We’ve worked with them to define water issues, do water mapping throughout the park’s irrigation system, which is extensive,” Hughes said.
The roadmap also seeks innovative new ways to conserve water, said Hughes.
“One of the objectives, besides using less is, how do you stretch it further, find ways to reuse water,” asked Hughes, adding “harvesting” water previously wasted from air-conditioning equipment and collecting rainwater runoff from building roofs are two potential reclamation efforts being considered.
The water-wise roadmap will also play a role in the Park’s 2015 centennial celebration of the 1915 Panama – California Exposition, and beyond, leaving an environmentally sustainable legacy for future generations.
For more information or to contribute, please visit www.FriendsofBalboaPark.org or call (619) 232-2282.
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