As the drought persists, the City is doubling down on its own efforts to conserve water alongside residents. Over the past few months, the City has begun the massive task of selectively removing grass from portions of City parks and facilities throughout Poway. The project is being completed in phases.
Phase one was completed in August and involved removing and replacing over 86,000 square feet of grass at eleven city facilities and parks. This work will save the City nearly 3 million gallons of water annually.
The second phase of the project is much larger and will come with even bigger water savings. This phase will replace roughly 150,000 square feet of turf with mulch in parts of Starridge Park, the dog pens at Community Park, Aubrey Park, Garden Road Park, and City Hall. Replacing this turf will save the City an additional 5 million gallons of water annually! In addition to this project, a parking lot expansion project at Lake Poway will remove an additional 17,100 square feet of turf, saving another 650,000 gallons of water per year.
Collectively, these projects will save 8.5 million gallons of water each year. To put that into perspective, the average single-family household consumes 163,000 gallons a year.
Living with drought conditions has become an everyday part of life in California. Even when we’re not in the midst of a drought, the next one is right around the corner. For that reason, the City is investing in permanent changes to reduce our City’s water use. In fact, as an agency we have reduced water used in City facilities and parks by 50% in recent months. We hope that you will join us in permanently reducing our demand on water.