How We Saved 10 Million Gallons of Water
Curious about How We Saved 10 Million Gallons of Water? The Centerra Metro District (CMD) original irrigation system was installed over 10 years ago and had a lot of room for improvement in terms of water conservation. The biggest challenge of this district included a city-wide water budget that couldn’t be exceeded. The vision and mission of CMD is to bring people closer to nature through the creation of commercial and retail spaces that are sustainable and support the landscape. Because this district is so large and complex, it requires rigorous landscape maintenance. Over time, inconsistent maintenance resulted in a very inefficient landscape, continuously exceeding the water budget.
The Ultimate Goal – Water Conservation
In order to get to the root of the problem, our irrigation experts conducted an extensive irrigation system audit, which inspected the entire system. The audit discovered mainline breaks, master valves left open, flow sensors that weren’t activated, and entire irrigation zones that were turned off. Without having the budget to replace the entire system, it was important that we replaced all the broken parts and fixed the areas that were shut off.
The next phase of this project was upgrading the control system to one that uses weather forecasting that considers rainfall and doesn’t allow irrigation to run during rain. The old spray heads that were originally installed were replaced with pressure regulating rotary nozzles to enhance the water efficiency a step further.
Savings in the Millions
Next, we worked hard to replace master valves and flow sensors which now receive real time alerts about potential water loss from those issues that were previously a big problem with water efficiency. It took us two months to replace them all, but now there is very little water loss due to those issues. Ultimately, CMD chose Chason Geister, our Northern Colorado Branch Manager, to be the Irrigation Administrator for the entire district moving forward. He manages all the irrigation, programming, adjustments, and oversees future installations and repairs. After years of work and effort, we are proud to say that not only have over 10 million gallons of water been saved, but water usage has fallen 24% below the mandated budget! This was an incredible feat for CMD and for EDI to have accomplished!