‘Smart’ sprinklers to combat runoff in Newport

Armed with a $300,000 federal grant, the city of Newport Beach is girding itself to continue the battle against urban runoff.

The problem is over-watering. The battleground is Newport Coast.

And the weapon? Sprinkler system controls that automatically adjust to the weather and ground conditions to prevent landscaping from getting more water than it can use.

City officials this week are launching a program to encourage up to 500 homeowners to use the controllers. With the grant and matching city funds, the city will pay for the controller and the installation.

When people over-water their yards, it might cost them extra on their bill. But it also causes another problem.

“For the city, the main thing is that’s excess water the plants don’t need, and all that’s running right down to the ocean,” said Tom Ash, a consultant working with the city on the sprinkler program.

Urban runoff is a problem because it carries pesticides, fertilizers and other contaminants directly onto the beach and into environmentally sensitive coastal areas. Newport has two state-designated areas — in Crystal Cove and Little Corona — that harbor protected marine life, and the city is trying to meet a nearly impossible requirement that all runoff to those areas be halted.

Where does the runoff come from? Because it flows even when there’s been no rain, environmental experts know it’s from developed areas, mainly from homes with landscaping, lawns, and thus irrigation.

One of the biggest problem areas in Newport Beach is Buck Gully, which city water quality specialist John Kappeler said carries as much as 190 million gallons of wasted water per year into the ocean.

That’s where the “smart” sprinkler controllers come in. They use a computerized box like a regular sprinkler system, but instead of watering for the amount of time set by a homeowner, they adjust based on satellite-transmitted weather data and individual conditions of the property they’re watering — for example, soil type and the kind of sprinkler heads used.

With the older systems “you would just guess what you thought you needed,” and program them to water for a certain number of minutes a day, said Bob Wade, whose Laguna Beach landscaping company has installed the controllers in Orange and San Diego counties.

The city expects the controllers to work because they’ve already been tried through a pilot project that included about 70 homes, and about 85% of them saw a significant reduction in water use.

“Several homeowners have called me and said the gutters in front of their house … have dried up, and their patios are dry now,” Wade said.

A controller that operates 12 watering stations would cost $679. Through Newport Beach’s program, homeowners get a controller for free, and the installer will inspect the irrigation system for leaks, though the homeowners have to pay for repairs if they decide to make them.

Homeowners who use the controllers may cut down their water bill while keeping their landscaping lush and green. But the biggest benefits, city code and water quality enforcement officer Shane Burckle said, will be conserving more water and slowing the gush of runoff into the ocean to a trickle.

For information about the city’s smart controller program, call the city code enforcement office at (949) 644-3215 or go to www.cleanwaternewport.com.