2003 Award Winners

Metropolitan Water District of Southern California –
Liquid Art: A Celebration of Water Through Public Art

Liquid Art was a regional art competition sponsored by Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to showcase public art that depicts or uses water. Twenty winning entries, selected from more than 100 nominations by a juried art panel, were photographed by a noted architectural photographer. The photographs comprise a traveling exhibition that has been displayed at galleries and community centers across the Southland and in San Francisco, fostering community involvement and media interest. Fountains, sculptures, murals and other public art installations remind visitors how water transforms its surroundings and influences everyone who comes into contact with it. Liquid Art became a vehicle for reaching new audiences with a message, communicated by art, about the importance of water.

The communication value of Metropolitan’s venture into the world of art was immeasurable, judging by the continuing interest in the exhibiting Liquid Art at new venues. Indeed, the project has taken on a life of its own. Originally envisioned as a one-year touring exhibition, it is closing in on a second year, with exhibit requests into 2004. Liquid Art also garnered widespread media coverage. A feature story in the Los Angeles Times Art section was a highlight. In additional to the traditional news outlets, including Spanish language La Opinión, stories about Liquid Art have appeared in Sunset and the Automobile Club’s Westways magazine (as the cover story). Liquid Art also caught the attention of PBS’ Huell Howser who did a one hour segment on Liquid Art as part of his “Road Trip” series.

Liquid Art is a great departure from Metropolitan’s traditional outreach programs. Liquid Art sent Metropolitan into unfamiliar territory, but in the process of finding its way in the art community, the agency interacted with new audiences and forged lasting alliances well beyond its wildest dreams.

City of San Diego Web-Based Landscape Watering Calculator

The City of San Diego has made great strides in promoting efficient indoor water use by its residents at home and in the workplace. The new target for those promoting conservation is outdoor water use. The average San Diegan uses 88 gallons of water per day at home; at least half of this water is used to maintain landscaping. The City of San Diego Water Department in 1999 developed a web-based Landscape Watering Calculator – an easily accessible tool to ensure that people use the proper amount of water on their lawns, trees, gardens and other landscaping.

The calculator determines the appropriate amount and duration of watering for an individual setting, based on the specific information entered into the system. It creates a customized irrigation schedule for every month of the year that enables residents take the guesswork out of setting their irrigation timers. To use the calculator, a person enters the following information into the calculator: varieties of plants, soil type and water system being used. Average weather conditions are accounted for based on the person’s Zip code. The San Diego Water Department encourages residents to use the calculator schedule as a guide, and to create schedules several times throughout the year to account for inevitable changes in weather patterns.

The Landscape Calculator helps San Diego to manage water consumption levels among its residents. Since 1999, more than 34,680 residents have used the calculator. Almost 10,000 have created watering schedules, which have saved an estimated 571,680 gallons of water per day. Those residents have saved money on their utility bills as well.

The San Diego Water Department promotes the Landscape Calculator through an extensive public education and outreach campaign. It also has made the calculator available to many other organizations – the San Diego County Water Authority, San Diego EarthWorks and the California Landscape Contractors Association among them – that have placed the calculator on their websites. In addition, the Water Department provided the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California with the programming codes necessary to adapt the calculator for the other five counties in the MWD service area. The County of Santa Barbara has adapted the calculator for its customers, and other water agencies in California and other states are interested in doing the same thing.

You can find the Web-Based Landscape Watering Calculator on the City of San Diego’s website at www.sandiego.gov/water/conservation.

AGIS Laboratory –Improving California’s Water Quality Using GIS and PUR

With little in the way of financial resources Professor Minghua Zhang and her team of graduate students at UC Davis Agricultural Geographic Systems (AGIS) Lab have made a significant impact on how agriculture can identify, analyze and develop solutions to problems associated with pesticide use. Their goal is to help farmers become better stewards of California’s water resources through pesticide use reduction. Their secret? Use of the Pesticide Use Reports data, or PUR in conjunction with Geographic Information Systems, or GIS. The immense PUR database has been collected by County Agricultural Commissioners and the Department of Pesticide Regulations since 1990. By using GIS tools and software, they are able to spatially analyze the PUR to identify and map pesticide use. Here is an example of what can be done with these tools:

By mining the PUR, the AGIS lab has identified winegrape growers who use little of the most highly toxic pesticides. By characterizing the pesticide use of these low use growers, they then worked on getting into the field to understand the cultural and biological farming practices that these growers employ. Finally, they are sharing the information with growers so that the farming practices of low use winegrape growers will be shared with their neighbors and the larger growing community through farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange. These farmers will be sharing their data and field analysis results at an upcoming Napa County Board of Supervisors meeting. The achievements of the AGIS lab have been made possible through the innovative approach of using historic pesticide use data in conjunction with working with farmers, policy makers, and academics to address the real needs of farmers. The result is the spread and adoption of farming practices that protect California’s water supply.

The AGIS lab has also investigated reductions in pre-emergent herbicide use in San Joaquin County winegrapes and has documented the decline of organophosphate use on prunes in several Central Valley counties. Results suggest that alternative farming practices in San Joaquin Valley have helped reduce the reliance on simazine, a popular pre-emergent while prune growers in the Central Valley have reduced dormant season sprays of organophosphates. Using their ability to spatially map and quantify pesticide use in California, the AGIS lab is able to critically analyze these changes in pesticide management in California, ultimately providing a valuable tool for improving efforts to protect water quality.

The AGIS lab is using their GIS database and their commitment to involve farmers in the analysis of the data to advance reductions in chemical applications rates for almonds and other crops. With more resources and funding, the innovative and creative work they have done with this important database could become a web based tool to allow farmers from across the state, with many different crops to determine if they are above or below the average chemical usage for their crops and to help them figure out how to reduce the amount of chemicals they apply.

Metropolitan Water District of Southern California – Heritage Gardening

In November 2002, the Metropolitan Water District board authorized a $2.3 million strategic public outreach campaign to educate Southern Californians on the need to conserve water without declaring a drought emergency. As significant conservation has already been achieved with permanent indoor devices and through other incentive programs, the campaign focused on reducing outdoor water use, which can be up to 70 percent of total household consumption. The campaign combines advertising, education, publicity and community outreach elements to foster appreciation and underscore the need for “Heritage Gardening,” a concept created by Metropolitan that encompasses the use of California native and drought tolerant plants, efficient irrigation and sustainable design in public, commercial and residential landscapes.

A series of workshops brought together disparate and previously unconnected groups in a synergistic groundswell of support for the Heritage Gardening concept. Grants of $75,000 and $20,000 were awarded in an innovative “City Makeover” program that will result in 11 prominent public landscapes featuring native and “California friendly” plants. Through all of these efforts, Metropolitan hopes to succeed by highlighting native plants and promoting the idea of making California look like California.

The results of this groundbreaking outreach effort have been outstanding and exceeded expectations greatly. Significant news coverage includes the devotion of the May 18 Los Angeles Times Magazine to native plants; a cover story on native plants in Sunset Magazine; a cover story on turf reduction and irrigation technologies in the Los Angeles Times Magazine; a cover story on native plants in the Los Angeles Times; a cover story in the Orange County Register on native plants and the City Makeover program; and a feature segment on KDOC-TV.

While it is too early for a complete measurement of water savings, the program’s early success can be documented through resulting news coverage, widespread community support and an increasing number of partnerships with retailers, nurseries, public agencies and community groups. The campaign has been widely adopted by water agencies in MWD’s service area, as well as agencies outside their boundaries. Most notably, Santa Barbara County Water Agency adopted the campaign and is using the MWD ads and educational tools with their constituents.

Carla Bard Advocacy Award Recipients

The Carla Bard Advocacy Award is given in the memory of Carla Bard, a former chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, a former member of the conference planning committee and an avid environmentalist who was recognized for her significant contributions in regards to the intelligent use of California’s dwindling water supply. The Carla Bard Award is given each year to individuals and agencies who go beyond the call of duty on a local level. This year three individuals are deserving of this award.

Jared W. Huffman

In 1992, Marin County voters approved a ballot measure authorizing a new pipeline to the Russian River for a supplemental supply, and to proceed with that project "as needed." After implementing one of the most intensive conservation programs anywhere through the 90s, the Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD) began revisiting supplemental supply alternatives. As recently as the fall of 2000, it seemed that the District would be moving forward with the Russian River pipeline.

However, Board Member Jared Huffman was not persuaded. He had been keeping his eye on other alternatives, and determined that desalination was becoming increasingly viable. The technology had advanced considerably since the last drought, and costs had dropped. Through a combination of persistence, diplomacy, and a mastery of the technical and policy issues surrounding desalination, Jared managed to turn an entire community 180 degrees in its pursuit of water supply reliability. He met with the toughest audiences, and systematically made the case that desal would work for Marin.

With its EIR well underway, MMWD is on the verge of realizing the benefits of desalination instead of relying more heavily on uncertain supplies from an over-allocated river. Thanks to Jared, the community is now more united on a water supply solution than anytime in recent history. We believe that Jared's effort is fully deserving of the Carla Bard award, for stepping out ahead of the crowd, and then skillfully bringing them along.

Kate Neiswender and Alyse Lazar

Kate Neiswender and Alyse Lazar are two attorneys who think as activists. Kate served as Counsel for the California State Senate Resources Committee and Alyse worked in the Ethics Unit for the State Bar of California. Both eventually returned to Ventura County to work on local issues and together they represented a small local, non-profit, the Santa Clarita Organization For Planning and the Environment (SCOPE) in their efforts to insure wise use of water in the Santa Clara Valley.

The results of their efforts, that took almost 4 years of litigation, was the legal decision that local planning agencies cannot use the full entitlements for State Water Project water in their land use plans, instead they must disclose accurate and complete water information regarding actual water availability to the public in the planning of new development.

To quote from the decision, “It is not enough for the EIR simply to contain information submitted by the public and experts. Problems raised by the public and responsible experts require a good faith reasoned analysis in response. The requirement of a detailed analysis in response ensures that stubborn problems or serious criticism are not ‘swept under the rug’”