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Loftness Adds Lightweight Mulching Head For Compact Excavators
Jessica Schwartz
The Drought-Wise Landscaper
Strategies from a California landscaper and irrigation expert. For the third time in the state’s history, California is facing a water crisis that reaches far beyond a solitary dry spell. Now in its fourth straight year, this ongoing drought is forcing the California Department of Water Resources to declare a state of emergency in many areas of the state. The deterioration of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, state water cutbacks, decreased snowfall, and climate change are contributing to a situation that threatens the very quality of life of Californians. The projected outlook also remains bleak when population growth is taken into account. According to the Association of California Water Agencies, “state officials recently projected that California’s population will reach 50 million by 2032 and 60 million by 2050.” This will create a huge strain on the state’s already taxed water supply system. Of course, one has only to read the news to know many other states are also facing ongoing water shortages. Fertigation In the face of such a seemingly insurmountable problem and accompanying water restrictions, landscaping becomes an easy target, leaving many to wonder what the future will look like for an industry so intimately tied to water-use. Yet a major solution may lie in fertigation, or fertilizing a yard through the irrigation system. The practice has historically been used almost exclusively at large commercial establishments such as golf courses and nurseries. But at my CA-based landscape firm, CK Water Systems and Landscape Development, I make fertigation systems available to ...
Cali in Crisis: Water Agencies Call for Immediate & Long-Term Action
California water agencies form the group, Solve The Water Crisis. A newly formed statewide education effort, Solve the Water Crisis, was launched this past April in California. It is being spearheaded by local water agencies from across the state with diverse supporters from all regions and across all industries. “As the State repeatedly calls for more conservation to get through the current drought, reactionary solutions to the current drought are not an acceptable or adequate policy response. There is a lack of acknowledgement on the larger and long-term picture – we are in a generational water supply crisis that is far more than just this drought and we need California policymakers to take immediate action,” says Heather Dyer, general manager of San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District, and a leader of Solve the Water Crisis. As the State responds to manage this current drought, the perpetual and systemic water crisis continues to grow, with no relief or remedy in sight, for the near term or future, states the group. Water agencies are now calling on the state to take action in response to the years of drought conditions, the repeated imposition of emergency regulations and water restrictions to reduce consumption, and the lack of progress on water infrastructure investment. The groups feels the time is now to imagine and create water infrastructure aligned with the new climate reality of significantly reduced snow-pack and increased precipitation volatility. Worsening climate conditions coupled with a population that has doubled since the development ...
