High-Tech Sprinklers Promise to Curb Runoff, Save Water

Gil Oviedo used to operate his sprinklers manually. Sometimes, he’d turn them on, the phone would ring and he’d forget the water flooding his lawn.

The water bills were costly, and keeping track of the watering time was cumbersome.

That problem was solved last year when Oviedo moved into his Irvine home, one of 40 homes in which a new watering system is being tested. Called an Evapotranspiration [or ET] Irrigation Controller, the device automatically dispenses the appropriate amount of water based on information about the landscape and weather. The idea is to have no more sprinklers spritzing water during an El Nino storm. No more plants drooping from overwatering while the excess water washes soil--and toxins--down the street to the sewer.

Orange County knows this predicament firsthand. Last year, four miles of ocean were closed in Huntington Beach due to mysteriously high levels of bacteria, possibly caused by urban runoff. This year, city and county officials are diverting 2.5 million gallons of runoff a day to a sewage treatment plant rather than have it empty into the ocean. Just last week, new signs were posted along a stretch of Huntington Beach after the water was found to be contaminated with the bacterium enterococcus.

In one attempt to cut down on urban runoff nationwide, a partnership of local and federal agencies is funding the testing and research for this $500,000, three-year project. Those agencies are the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Municipal Water District of Orange County, the Irvine Ranch Water District and the National Water Research Institute.

Since November 1998, the ET Controller has been tested to determine its water savings potential and measure the runoff that’s prevented from entering the ocean. It may be available to the public as early as next year.

“Pollution has really hit people at home, and the major issue is they don’t realize the ocean starts in their frontyard,” said Tom Ash, a horticulturist with Cooperative Technology and Services International of Tustin, a private water conservation company. Ash is writing the test study.

“When you mow your lawn, you fertilize, spray a little pesticide, and when you overwater, those chemicals are washing downstream.”

The device is made by Network Services of Petaluma. It originally was seen as a water-conserving device, but an affordable version wasn’t possible for years because of the expensive wireless technology of a decade ago.

Today the growth and availability of wireless technology have made the ET Controller affordable at an estimated $100 plus a $4 monthly fee.

The ET Controller consists of a metal box with a computerized receiving system that takes in weather reports from local stations via satellite.

Coupled with information on the types of plants, grass and soil in each landscape, the device determines the correct amount of water for each section of the yard. After information on the plants’ position in the yard, water requirements and the sloping of the land are input, users never have to tinker with the ET Controller again.

The technology is especially timely now, when 40% of the United States’ waterways don’t meet the goals for public-health protection, according to the EPA.

In Orange County, Laguna Niguel is the subject of a cleanup and abatement order from the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board relating to a storm drain that dumps into a tributary of Aliso Creek. There, the overwatering of residential landscapes is considered a serious contributor to the problem.

The ET Controller “sounds promising,” said Ken Montgomery, director of public works in Laguna Niguel, but he noted the difficulty of installing the devices in large numbers of homes.

“We can work with the Orange County Water District and give incentives for them to use something like that,” Montgomery said, “but we can’t impose on people to use it.”

Marsha Marion, who lives on a test site, is impressed by the results and convenience.

“It’s been a year and a half. We never do anything and our yard looks beautiful,” Marion said. “We used to come home--it would be raining and our sprinklers still went on. People don’t know how to operate electronic sprinklers.”

In addition, residents have saved up to 25% on their water bills, according to Ash.

In October, 150 more homes in the Northwood area of Irvine will become test sites, where runoff will be measured before and after the ET Controllers are installed.

The device may prove a breakthrough in both water conservation and curbing water runoff, said Joseph Berg, water use efficiency programs manager at the Municipal Water District of Orange County, who acquired funding for the project.

“People save more than they spend,” Ash said, “and it works from everybody’s standpoint. There are clearly two incentives: the overall health of the environment and the economics.”