All school districts in Coachella Valley brace for strict water restrictions

Governor Jerry Brown mandated a statewide water use reduction of 25 percent around four months ago, but this year will mark the first time schools across the Coachella Valley will have to meet the restrictions throughout an entire academic calendar year.

“Well it’s tough to cut back on water in the desert, but everyone’s in the same position,” said Clayton Hill, the Director of Maintenance, Operation, and Transportation at Desert Sands Unified School District.

All school districts in the desert are doing their best to meet the strict cutback.

Palm Springs Unified School District said 20 percent of their water use is for indoor purposes, like restrooms, showers, labs, and water fountains.

Officials said those usage rates shouldn’t change. However, the other 80 percent is irrigation and landscaping and that’s where they feel they can make a dent.

Watering times for athletic fields have already been cut in half and are only done at certain evening and early morning hours. Brian Murray, the Assistant Superintendent for Business Services at Palm Springs Unified School District, said the irrigation efforts need to be done carefully to not let the grass completely die off.

“When you’re playing football, half the time roughly you’re on the ground,” he said. “And if the turf isn’t taken care of, it’s an awful hard ground to fall on and it results in injuries from our student athletes. So that’s something obviously that we want to try to limit.”

PSUSD overseeded all of their athletic fields a year ago with good results, and that plan looks to be in place again this year. Coachella Valley Unified School District schools have also overseeded their high school athletic fields. However, they’ve opted to not overseed the front and quad areas of their schools, as well as limit the irrigation times in those areas and on less days. CVUSD officials said their efforts have already resulted in nearly a 40 percent decrease of irrigation water usage.

Desert Sands Unified School District also agreed that irrigation is the main culprit of water usage and have put plans in place of reducing the usage, however keeping the athletic fields intact. But according to Hill, other options like desertscaping, have been talked about but could bring up other issues.

“What will happen to the surfacing in those areas, for example, if they were desertscape? Would it create any safety issues? Sand on the sidewalk where kids are running and so forth?” Hill continued to ponder. “What would it do to some of our more mature trees if we pulled out the grass and the irrigation and some of the ground cover it would lose and irrigating those trees? So thinking through is going to be critical as we move through this process.”

Water conservation efforts will be monitored month-by-month. Schools expect certain areas on campuses to go brown, but preserve athletic areas used for sports and recreation.