According to a report by marketwatch.com, water demand was 9.2 percent below the 10-year average. Customers used approximately 2.1 billion less gallons of water than the year before.
A San Jose Mercury News article estimates 325,851 gallons as the average amount of water a family of four uses in a year.
The lower water consumption demand is tied in with the Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners’ Emergency Water Supply Shortage Plan, which was activated on Sept. 13 last year. The board activated the plan in reaction to permanent reductions to imported water deliveries into Southern California, low water storage levels in key reservoirs and the hot climate that year. According to the report by marketwatch.com, the plan issued prohibitions on certain outdoor uses of water.
Cal State Long Beach has contributed to this water conservation effort with reclaimed water irrigation systems and other water conservation procedures.
Although CSULB is not required to follow the prohibitions in the City Emergency Water Supply Shortage Plan, the university conserves water in other ways.
Brian McKinnon, manager of grounds and landscape management, said CSULB lawns are irrigated with 50 percent reclaimed water to conserve water use.
McKinnon said the gardeners use a central weather station to control the use of reclaimed water for the lawns.
“The central weather station reads the heat, wind speed and humidity of the air,” McKinnon said. “It calculates the evaporation from the soil.”
Gardeners use a central irrigation system called the Rainmaster Evolution System. The irrigation system maintains a level of moisture and protects the soil from overwatering, said McKinnon.
According to McKinnon, the gardeners also use mulch to keep moisture in plant beds. Grass clippings from mowing the lawn are recycled as fertilizer for the soil. Gardeners also use mulching machines to cut branches from trees at CSULB into bits of wood.
“We apply the [mulch] to the soil in moisture beds [of plants],” McKinnon said. “It keeps moisture in and it keeps weeds out.”
Long Beach’s emergency plan restricted residents to only water lawns three days a week. They could not water their lawns between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.