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16 | THE COLONY NEWS | JANUARY 2022 | COMMITTEE NEWS By Jane Payne, 909-455-2253 WALKWAYS and PATHS: Winter gives you more opportunities throughout the day to go outside and take a walk. We encourage you to use and enjoy The Colony concrete walkways and DG paths that wind through the greenbelts. Areas where there are no walkways or paths are not intended for walking. These areas can have uneven ground, tree roots, steep slopes, drainage ditches and other similar impediments to walking. According to the National Institutes of Health, "More than one in three people aged 65 years or older falls each year." So please, stay on the walkways and paths for your walks. DROUGHT: As you know the drought is continuing and we have been working hard to conserve water. For the first six months (May-October) of The Colony fiscal year, we have been slightly below budget in our water costs, and we have been 16% below our historical 2012-2021 average usage. That is a savings of 9.2 million gallons. Please keep in mind, the LAC tracks the water usage and costs in the month they are consumed, whereas the HOA tracks them on when the invoices are paid. Also, the LAC spreads the annual budget across the year based on the high and low historical usage months, whereas the HOA spreads the budget evenly across the 12 months. Therefore, we will always differ on the monthly results reports. There was a free Zoom presentation offered to Colony residents in November on the drought, led by UCCE Master Gardener Celeste Cantú, Chair of San Diego Regional Water Control Board. She also volunteers on the boards and advisory councils for the Water Foundation and UCANR President's Commission. Several Colony residents participated and learned where our water comes from and saw current photos of the low water levels at Lake Oroville and Lake Mead. To reduce water usage, she strongly recommended removing turf. PLANT MORE TREES: When asked what else we can do, Celeste suggested adding more trees. In addition to the well- known benefits of trees cleaning the air, creating oxygen, shade and lowering temperatures, trees also save water by reducing rainwater runoff and evaporation. Since March of 2017, the net number of Colony trees has increased by 194 trees. This brings the number of trees within The Colony to 5,618 (per our tree inventory in March 2021). We would, of course, love to have more trees and are looking for opportunities while staying within the budget. CONVERT TO DRIP IRRIGATION: Another water-saving initiative we have been considering is to convert front yard planters to drip irrigation and reduce both usage and cost. Drip irrigation is more efficient by putting water directly on the roots versus the loss of water, due to evaporation and watering areas without plants, with overhead spray. One of the benefits to residents is that the drip irrigation will be under the mulch, so you won't see any difference in your front planters. The HOA water has three pricing tiers as follows: Tier 1 outdoor use, Tier 2 inefficient use and Tier 3 excessive use. The Tier 3 cost is approximately three times the Tier 1 cost. We have identified the meters with high usage of Tier 3, high- cost water, and want to target these areas. We need to do a test converting some of the front yard planters in the high-tier water areas to monitor the plant health, measure the savings and judge the feasibility of making this conversion. A proposal will be going to the HOA Board in January or February. If you, as residents, would like to learn more about what you can do in your backyards and what rebates are available, visit www.evmwd.com/conservation. LANDSCAPE ADVISORY By Greg Hill We hope you had a happy holiday season; I know the Communications Committee did! Recently the HOA Board of Directors approved the purchase of new equipment for our Communications studio. The monitors have begun to arrive and shortly we should be receiving a portable video camera. We would like to officially welcome our two new members, Greg Bennett and Mia Jensen. Have you filled out the Website Utilization survey (in December's issue of The Colony News)? If not, please do so as soon as possible. Our other survey, the Digital Census, will be distributed soon. These items are critical to help us determine how we can best communicate in The Colony. The committee would love it if you and your organization would participate in our Colony Daze project. (See red box on page 5.) We want to generate images and videos which can be combined to create a cross section of this active senior community. Work is progressing very nicely on our efforts to upgrade The Colony website, and we should see new developments this year. We hope that your New Year will be healthy and joyful! COMMUNICATIONS