Washington County School District weighs extensive water cuts

ST. GEORGE — For nine months each year, Washington County School District waters hundreds of acres of sports fields, lawns and nonfunctional turf. Add to that the water required for plumbing within school buildings, and it begins to make sense why the district pays more than $1 million in water bills each year.

As one of the largest water users in the county, Washington County School District has been working to implement conservation measures and is considering removing all landscape grass, St. George, Utah, June 30, 2022 | Photo by Ammon Teare, St. George News

But even maintenance staff like Robert Parr, an energy education specialist, were surprised by just how much water the district used between its 60 buildings and surrounding properties in 2020.

“We were called in as a group to the Washington County Water Conservancy District to inform us that we’re in the top 20% of users in the county,” Parr said. “We were using 434 million gallons annually, so we started reaching out to our custodians and sent our irrigation techs to walk through every campus and see which areas we can reduce watering and start making small adjustments.”

The early results of the district-wide campaign were visible by the end of 2021: annual water use was reduced by about 100 million gallons – enough to fill over 150 Olympic swimming pools or supply all the water needs of 343 Washington County homes for a year (based on an average annual consumption of 290 kGal/household, or 0.89 acre feet).

In fact, the 23% decrease in consumption brought the district’s total use to within a few million gallons of its 2010 usage – all despite acquiring 222 acres and developing 1.5 million square feet of school buildings in the past 11 years.

Curtis Cozzens, custodial and general maintenance supervisor, explained how the district was able to curb its excessive water use without taking drastic measures.

Water use rose incrementally from 2010 to 2020 at Washington County schools, but conservation measures and an ongoing awareness campaign brought 2021 use to within 4% of 2010 total consumption | Image courtesy of Washington County School District, St. George News

“In the beginning, we weren’t really managing things, and you can’t control what you don’t manage,” Cozzens said. “This is the result of following that philosophy. We’re going to keep doing water audits, and that means we’re going to be controlling or managing that much better. I predict some significant savings going forward.”

Reduced watering saved the district $179,000 in 2021 utility bills, and maintenance staff want to at least hold steady if not continue to cut back on water use, Parr said. 

Most of the recent changes focused on improving irrigation practices and grounds management – indoor plumbing improvements installing water wise toilets and sinks were completed in 2017 after the school district was awarded a conservation grant through the water conservancy district.

In the past year, irrigation technicians installed smart controllers that account for factors like soil moisture, wind and temperature as well as simply walking each campus to find areas of over- or under-watering.

Still, limited water pressure and sprawling school campuses combine to prolong sprinkler cycles, which local residents may observe when watering continues well into the morning or in the afternoon at less than ideal times.

Most of the sprinklers at Washington County schools use culinary water much like residential housing, but the district uses secondary water from city irrigation ponds where proximity allows like Sunrise Ridge Intermediate, St. George, Utah, June 29, 2022 | Photo by Ammon Teare, St. George News

In addition, the district still primarily relies on more expensive and resource-intensive culinary water for most of its irrigation needs, the same as most residences. 

To address these issues, and to diversify its water supply, the district has tried to look for opportunities to use secondary water or find alternatives to culinary water, Parr said. 

During the recent construction of Crimson Cliffs High School, for example, the district drilled its own well to pump groundwater for irrigation. At existing sites where proximity allows, such as at Dixie Middle School or Sunrise Ridge Intermediate School, the district takes advantage of holding ponds for secondary water not fit for human consumption.

More immediately, the district has adopted a “yellow is the new green” attitude and is trying to get the public and school staff to buy into more restrictive watering that may produce visible drying on campus lawns. And administrators are seriously considering more extreme cuts.

“If we can come up with the funding, we’ll go ahead and eliminate grass,” said Stan Demille, director for the entire maintenance department. “That’s our next big step: we’ll work with the conservancy district going forward and xeriscape as much as possible.”

The demands of watering a considerable amount of acreage at most schools, coupled with low water pressure, means the district often has to water at less than ideal times, St. George, Utah, June 30, 2022 | Photo by Ammon Teare, St. George News

Throughout the rest of the summer, the district will resume its water audits and revisit each campus to continue identifying possible waste and to keep everything running smoothly. 

Much of the remaining work falls to the custodial staff at each location to make the day-to-day adjustments necessary to maintain the savings the district implemented in the last year. Parr, Cozzens and Demille all had nothing but praise for the custodians working to save water at school sites throughout the county.

“For one guy at an elementary school to be able to get things ready for breakfast, clean up and immediately start preparing for lunch, clean up after lunch and then still try to monitor how water is being used on the grounds – it’s a huge job.” Parr said. “You’ve got to give credit to these custodians, because they’ve really stepped up and monitored their campuses better than ever.”

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

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