The Long Beach Water Department (LBWD) has entered into an agreement with the Parks, Recreation and Marine (PRM) Department to allow the PRM more flexibility in their watering schedule, while maintaining their current amount of water usage, the LBWD announced today.

According to the LBWD, the Water Efficiency Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), approved by the Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners yesterday, does not increase the volume of water allocated to PRM, but rather, it authorizes the department to water on days outside the regular watering schedule, which is Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays during the hot summer months.

Since weekends are the days the public visits and uses parks the most, the MOU noted, watering on Saturdays disturbs the public’s continued enjoyment and use of the parks. In addition, PRM is limited to watering after the parks close at 10:00PM, and all watering must be completed by the time the parks reopen at 6:00AM.  This, along with the current three day per week watering schedule caused a strain on PRM’s antiquated irrigation system, resulting in 54 pipeline breaks in recent months, according to the LBWD.

“This MOU is not allowing Parks to have more water; it’s providing greater flexibility in our irrigation schedule to water our 164 parks efficiently and protects our great quality of life in our award-winning parks system,” said Marie Knight, Director of Parks, Recreation and Marine Department, in a statement. “We are finding ways to incorporate long-term water use efficiency into our parks such as updating the infrastructure with newer irrigation technology, planting drought tolerant landscapes in strategic spaces and eventually, adding more reclaimed water to our system.” 

In order to maintain its current volume of water use, PRM will reduce watering in some less-utilized areas of the parks and concentrate more watering on higher-priority areas such as playing fields, recreation and picnic areas.

“I want to commend the leadership of both departments for collaboratively working together to strengthen our community’s water resources and sustainability,” said Frank Martinez, President of the Board of Water Commissioners, in a statement. “Our ultimate goal is to be good stewards of the public trust.” 

“Given the outstanding and expensive irrigation infrastructure repairs needed in City parks, this partnership really benefits the residents of Long Beach who enjoy our community park space,” Chris Garner, General Manager of the Long Beach Water Department said in a statement. “Not only will this coordination result in more efficient water usage in the parks and lakes, this should also reduce water irrigation system maintenance costs and, hopefully, reduce the cost of water supply for PRM by decreasing water waste and increasing the use of less-expensive reclaimed water.”