Sustainable Peralta

The Laney College Garden will be one of the many sites served by EBMUD's recycled water.

LANEY COLLEGE – The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) will soon provide the entire Laney College campus and the Peralta District Offices sites with recycled water for use in all irrigation. Sergio Angel, Head Groundskeeper for the Peralta, expects EBMUD engineers to begin inspections this week to make sure no irrigation water will find its way into drinking water.

When completed, the retrofit will save Laney College approximately $6000, since recycled water is 25% less expensive than fresh water. The College currently uses 3.7 Million gallons of fresh water for irrigation each year.

“I thought it was crazy [to use recycled sewage water]. I heard that the water smelled, so I didn’t want it,” remembers Sergio. “Then [in 2006] we went for a tour [at their test sites] and the grasses and flowers EBMUD’s test plots looks good. They looked healthy, so we decided to try it.”
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Rainmaster DX2 controller receives weather information and limits irrigation watering.

This September, the Department of General Services Ground Crews, lead by Grounds Supervisor Sergio Angel, completed installation of modern irrigation controls that ration irrigation watering based on current weather conditions. The system garnered a $40,000 rebate from the Irrigation Upgrade Program through the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD).

On a daily basis, the Rainmaster software collects and analyzes data from monitoring stations at Laney, College of Alameda, and Merritt Colleges, then remotely programs the controllers at the colleges with that days irrigation allowance and schedule.

The system helps Peralta save water by … continue reading »