It's Your Dough, Water Slow!

Douglas County Water Resource Authority (www.DCWater.org) has just been awarded a grant for $250,000 by the Colorado Water Conservation Board to retrofit 1,000 yards with more efficient rotary sprinkler nozzles over the summer of 2011. The nozzles are about 30% more efficient that current designs, and that means a good deal of water demand can be reduced by use of these devices. The roots of the grass in our lawns will still receive the proper amount of water. It just takes less water to get to the roots. Traditional designs are prone to misting, as well as impacts of windy conditions and evaporation. Rotary nozzles shoot streams of water that are heavier, not as susceptible to these other problems, and so do a better job of irrigating our lawns. Use of the nozzles also means your water bill can be lowered by about 15% from what it would otherwise be with the old design sprinkler heads.

Water providers in the area are looking at migrating to a renewable surface water system in the near future. To give you an idea of cost savings, our community uses somewhere around 2,000 ac-ft of water every year. (Ac-ft is a common measurement for a lot of water, and every family of four uses about ½ an ac-ft of water every year.) If we have to pay $17,500 per ac-ft for renewable water rights to replace our existing water supply, we could be talking a lot of money. Saving 15% could reduce the cost of our renewable water future by around $5,250,000. While the City Council has not expressed interest in this sort of savings, the Metro District has. Rebates are now available through the Metro District for your installation of rotary sprinkler nozzles.

The DCWRA retrofit program will create several dozen summer jobs for high school students in the area. To get ready for this project, a pilot program featuring 50 yards is currently underway. Partners on the pilot project include the Douglas County School District, Arapahoe Douglas Works!, the Center for Resource Conservation, and DCWRA. DCWRA members participating in the pilot project include Town of Castle Rock, City of Lone Tree, Castle Pines Metropolitan District, and Castle Pines North Metropolitan District.

For those do it yourselfers who can’t wait to participate in next summer's retrofit project, go ahead and ask your local retailer now for money and water saving “rotary sprinkler nozzles”. For more information, please check out: http://www.dcwater.org/pages/sprinklers/sprinklers.html. It’s your dough, water slow!