Tooele County schools may have brown lawns this summer.
Due to this year’s dry water season, school district officials issued new instructions on landscape irrigation to their head custodians last week.
The aim of the new instructions is to reduce the amount of water used on school district turf. The instructions are also intended to increase the efficiency of the district’s irrigation systems, according to Cory Dobson, Tooele County School District custodial services supervisor.
“We want to be part of the community and do our part to conserve water this summer,” he said.
The school district has a lot of turf to manage at more than 30 facilities, according to Dobson.
“The public should be aware that some of our campuses will be less green than we kept them in the past,” he said. “We will cut back on the amount of water used. However, due to safety concerns, we will keep our athletic surfaces greener and healthier.”
Along with an overall reduction in water usage, Dobson has asked custodians to take specific steps to make sure sprinkler systems are functioning properly.
Dobson’s instructions called for custodians to fill irrigation lines with water and manually turn on every zone while visually inspecting each sprinkler head in operation.
“Sprinkler heads should be operating properly. Which means they water only lawn, trees, and flowerbeds. Sprinkler heads should be turning, not broken and gushing water,” wrote Dobson in the instructions.
Along with the initial inspection, custodians have been instructed to walk their irrigation systems weekly, he said.
“These are things that should be done every year,” Dobson said. “But with the water outlook for this year, it is important that we take extra precautions to be wise stewards.”
While custodians and district staff will do their best to monitor irrigation systems, Dobson called on the public for help.
“If somebody spots a problem, we want then to call the district office and leave a message describing the problem,” he said. “If they leave their name and phone number, I will call them back and report on what action we took to fix the problem.”
Most irrigation systems in the school district operate using electronic timers that allow custodians to set the day and time by zone for watering.
“We will water in the evening as much as possible, but there are some exceptions to this,” Dobson said.
Settlement Canyon Irrigation Company requires the school district to water during the day when the company is on restrictions, he said.
Drip irrigation systems that have a lower evaporation rate than sprinklers may also be used during the day, according to Dobson.
Some larger campuses, like high schools, have more zones than can be watered at night. On these campuses watering too many zones at one time causes water pressure to drop and then sprinklers heads don’t get coverage, according to Dobson.
For example Stansbury High School’s 40-acre campus has 99 irrigation zones, he said.
“It takes about 24 hours to get a full rotation through all of Stansbury High School’s zones,” Dobson said.
The school district is installing a new smart irrigation system, called “WeatherTRAK,” on some irrigation lines, according to Dobson.
In determining the timing and amount of water to be used, the WeatherTRAK irrigation system takes into account the turf’s slope, soil type, surface, and sprinkler head type and then consults an online weather forecast, Dobson said.
The WeatherTRAK system is currently in use at the Wendover High School baseball field, Clark Johnsen Junior High School, the soccer field at Stansbury High School, and at East and West Elementary Schools.
It costs more to install WeatherTRAK. There is also an annual fee for the weather information. However, in the first year of use at Wendover, the water bill for the baseball field went down by $8,000, according to Dobson.
“The Tooele County School District wants to be seen as good stewards for our precious resource of water while protecting the taxpayer’s investment of aesthetically pleasing school landscaping,” Dobson said.