July 15, 2004

Lab watering policy

Q: During June and July, a common sight at the Laboratory was sprinklers watering Kentucky bluegrass lawns, usually in the middle of the day and sometimes wastefully sending water onto adjacent parking lots. We are in the midst of a prolonged drought and municipalities all over New Mexico are letting bluegrass lawns die out. Apparently, the Laboratory is not participating in the effort to save water. Is it Laboratory policy to sustain non-native vegetation around buildings no matter how intense the drought becomes? If there is no policy, what rationale is being employed?

A: This question comes up every year and is a good one. 

The watering/ landscaping portion of the Grounds Program in Utilities and Infrastructure (FWO-UI) is set up to maintain existing lawns and not to change the total landscaping theme of the Lab. Several lawns are existing and may contain Kentucky bluegrass, however, much has been replaced for different reasons with new turf grass. The new grass was required to be a Fescue blend - 'Triathalon,' - which is more drought resistant, and in accordance with Lab standards. The cost to the maintenance budget to replace all the grass would be out of the scope of the program and very costly.

Most new areas have gone to a more xeriscape design with drip irrigation for the plants.

There still is a good argument for the turf grass and tree design, which provide a more relaxing, less dusty and cooler atmosphere. It can encourage a more pleasant lunch or break atmosphere, to get people away from focusing on the computer. 

The actual quantities of water used to maintain the lawns has been calculated at various times and found to be very small when compared to process water used for the cooling, research, drinking and sanitary systems.

We are changing back from our computer controlled system to manual controls, consequently we have had to manually run the systems to test them.

We have had some broken lines around the Otowi Building with all the new construction; we fixed lines and controls there, but to save the lawn we have been hitting it hard. We had similar problems at TA-53.

We generally try to set the controls to water early in the morning in almost all these cases, it is definitely more efficient [to water] early in the morning.

--Ed Hoth, FWO-UI