Criticism Rains Down on Caltrans Over Sprinklers : Drought: Despite the appearances of water waste along roadways, the agency has cut its usage by 20%.

You are inching down the San Diego Freeway in the heart of Orange County, locked in a rush-hour rainstorm, when you spot a peculiar sight through the downpour. A squadron of roadside sprinklers is spinning wildly amid the tempest, dousing the already soggy ice plant carpeting a freeway embankment.

For the California Department of Transportation, that sort of episode is a perennial problem. But in a year as dry as this one, it’s a public relations nightmare.

Don’t be deceived by a few maverick sprinklers, officials at Caltrans warn. They’re doing something to turn off the tap.

Eager to avoid being labeled water wasters, the agency has redoubled its efforts to conserve as the drought drags on for the fifth year. Up and down the state, Caltrans has scaled back its irrigation practices, cutting water usage by 20% during the last two years.

If the agency holds to its current course, its thirst should be reduced even more this year, with savings of more than 30% expected statewide.

Not only is Caltrans watering far less, but most of the irrigating is accomplished during cooler, pre-dawn hours when there is less evaporation. Parched places like Santa Barbara, meanwhile, haven’t even turned on a roadside sprinkler in more than a year.

The agency also has started to use more reclaimed water, imported from local sewage treatment plants and transported by tanker trucks and special pipelines. In Orange County, 14% of the water that Caltrans uses is reclaimed, and that figure should rise in the coming years. Los Angeles and Ventura counties water 5% of their freeway flora with recycled water.

“We’d like to get the word out that we’re sensitive and trying to do our share,” said Frank Weidler, a Caltrans deputy district director in Orange County.

In most cases, the agency has put off replanting sections of ground cover killed by the drought and winter frost. Meanwhile, in February authorities indefinitely delayed landscaping work along newly completed highway projects, leaving them fallow until the state’s drought is reassessed next month.

As a result, land straddling a pair of nearly completed interchanges along the Century Freeway in Los Angeles as well as several other highway projects throughout the state could remain unplanted until rain--and a lot of it--returns to the state. To avoid erosion, embankments would be covered with straw.

If the agency sticks with conservation plans devised before March’s heavy rains, Caltrans expects to cut its water usage throughout California to less than 18,000 acre-feet during 1991, enough water to supply a city of 80,000 for a year.

It may seem like a lot of water, but in the statewide scheme of things, that’s a drop in the bucket.

Caltrans, however, is perhaps the most noticeable water user in California. Each day, millions of motorists zip by the 21,000 acres of highway plantings maintained by the agency. As a result, transportation officials hear quickly from their constituents if something is amiss.

“Caltrans is a highly visible agency, and it has a special responsibility to engage in conservation practices,” noted Mark Dymally, a senior analyst with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Dymally said Caltrans has made progress in its conservation efforts, “but right now, it’s probably no better or no worse than the rest of Southern California. We’ve made great strides, but we still have a long way to go.”

In the last decade, Caltrans has done lots of little things to save, officials said. Work crews have used mulch around shrubs and trees to help retain water. Rain meters have been installed on automatic sprinkler systems.

Moreover, the agency has been steadily shifting the mix of plants along the state’s freeways to more drought-tolerant varieties. Ivy, ice plant and other thirsty plants are on their way out. Water-finicky foliage like bottlebrush, acacia and California peppers are in.

“The public doesn’t necessarily want to see anything tropical or lush, but they have certain expectations,” said Dennis Snyder, a Caltrans senior landscape architect in Los Angeles. “We’re trying to meet those and stay within our own goals of reduced water use.”

The trend now is away from covering a freeway hillside with a lush carpet of greenery, shifting instead toward the tasteful use of larger, hardier trees and shrubs, said Sandy Ankhasirisan, chief landscape architect for Caltrans in Orange County. These plants not only require less moisture, they can be more effectively watered without using wasteful spray irrigation systems.

“We’re going more with big plantings and lots of trees,” Ankhasirisan said. “People are going by at 55 m.p.h., so they’re not going to be able to see a lot of detail anyway.”

Ingenuity by Caltrans crews also has helped save water. In Orange County, ground water pumped out at some Caltrans construction sites has been used to help keep down the dust along highway projects.

In Los Angeles, crews have delayed pruning lower branches on trees to create more shade, and “maximize the cooling effect,” Snyder said. “We’re doing everything we can short of letting trees and bushes die.”

At the notorious Orange Crush interchange--the knot of concrete where the Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Orange freeways meet--the water has simply been turned off. That’s because the interchange is slated for reconstruction later this year and officials figure that it doesn’t make sense to water the foliage since most of it will be replaced, said Tom Almany, Caltrans maintenance chief in Orange County.

To that end, Caltrans is getting into the reclaimed water business. About 200 acres of landscape along the Century Freeway will be irrigated by recycled water. Another recycled water project is in the works near the intersection of the San Diego and San Gabriel River freeways in Seal Beach.

But some problems persist. Try as it might, Caltrans has been unable to tame the occasional renegade sprinkler. Almost daily, the agency gets calls from motorists irked by the sight of a billowing plume of water spraying onto a concrete off-ramp.

Another perplexing problem is shutting off sprinklers when a fast-moving rainstorm looms. The solution is a bit more involved than simply flipping a switch. In Orange County, nearly 150 valves have to be shut down by work crews dispatched to various swathes of freeway, a task that takes half a day.

Caltrans has tried to combat the problem by installing rain sensors on its automatic irrigation systems, but those occasionally malfunction. The only fail-safe solution appears to be the advent of a high-tech system to control sprinklers via a computer located at a central maintenance station.

Not only does the computer provide sophisticated data on how much water should be applied during certain seasons and weather conditions, but it permits a single human to quickly turn off the water when it starts raining.

The automated system is already in use in San Diego County. Orange County plans to install similar hardware that will let the district’s central maintenance station control things along a 10-mile stretch of the Garden Grove Freeway. The water will be turned on and off by radio signal.

But things go wrong even in a high-tech world. Cars still occasionally run over sprinkler heads. Pipes still burst.

In Los Angeles, a 24-hour hot line allows motorists to phone in reports of problems. Orange County also maintains a special phone line linked directly to its main maintenance center in Orange.

“We welcome those calls,” Almany said. “The public is our best eyes out there.”