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16 | THE COLONY NEWS | OCTOBER 2021 | COMMITTEE NEWS COLONY WATER USAGE By Jane Payne, 909-455-2253 While droughts are common in California, this year's is much hotter and drier than others, evaporating water more quickly from the reservoirs and the sparse Sierra Nevada snowpack that feeds them. The state's more than 1,500 reservoirs are 50% lower than they should be this time of year, according to Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California-Davis. California is in its second year of drought, with worsening dry conditions. Fifty of the state's 58 counties are under an emergency drought declaration, prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom this summer to ask residents to voluntarily reduce their water use by 15 percent. According to Drought.gov, Riverside County in 2021 has been the 23rd driest year to date in 127 years. Below is a graphic of the drought situation in Riverside County as of Aug. 31. As you can see, Murrieta is in a Severe Drought (D2) which means among other things that trees are stressed and the fire season is longer, with higher burn intensities. WATER SAVINGS: During the past 13 years, The Colony has just about cut the water usage in half. To elaborate, in 2008/2009 our usage was 185,796 HCF (Hundred Cubic Feet) and we ended the 2020/2021 FY using 94,315 HCF. This reduction resulted in cutting our usage by 91,480 HCF (which is 68,427,040 gallons) or 49 percent. USAGE REDUCTIONS: The two major factors, which contributed to our reduction in water usage, were changes in our irrigation system and the turf renovation projects in the common areas. • We are now irrigating based on the ET (Evapotranspiration rates), which is the loss of water from a planted area by evaporation from the soil surface and plant transpiration. We get real-time information from our weather station on Colony Drive and the system adjusts the irrigation run times accordingly. This helps us only water based on how much the plant actually needs. • The statewide drought mandate in 2015 forced The Colony to reduce the amount of turf. In 2016, a proposal to convert some turf in the green belts to drought tolerant plants and drip irrigation was approved by the Board. This project was completed June 2021. Overall, we reduced the amount of turf by 640,777 square feet. WATER COSTS: The cost of water continues to increase 4-5% per year and outpaces the reduction in usage. If we had not taken these water reduction steps, in 2020/2021 our estimated water bill would be approximately $797,065 (versus actual $404,946). This estimate is understated because if the large amount of water from 2008/2009 had been used in 2020/2021, the extra water would fall mostly in the high-tier pricing. Therefore, the average cost would be higher than $4.29, which could make our annual cost approach $1 million. GOING FORWARD: No matter what we do, the weather has the biggest impact on water usage as we maintain an aesthetic healthy landscape. We are in another drought period, and fortunately, we are in a better position by having reduced our usage. More needs to be done and the LAC is continuing our research on additional water-saving initiatives. LANDSCAPE ADVISORY

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