City of Bakersfield looking to drought-resistant streetscaping in long-range effort to save water

Jan. 18—California may be flooding, but the multiyear drought is far from over.

It only makes sense that the city of Bakersfield has its eye on reducing water use over the long term on city-owned properties and streetscaping along Bakersfield's busy avenues and major traffic arteries.

It's why the city has begun taking advantage of incentives offered by California Water Service Co. that have the potential to return thousands of dollars to city coffers, while saving millions of gallons of water annually.

CalWater has established a program for customers, both big and small, that incentivizes turf replacement with drought-tolerant landscaping, sometimes called xeriscape. The program reimburses CalWater's account holders up to $3 for each square foot of turf removed.

City spokesman Joe Conroy said the city's Recreation & Parks Department worked up a pilot program on the traffic medians on Rosedale Highway between Coffee Road and Calloway Drive.

The project included the removal of roughly 42,000 square feet of turf, which was replaced by drought-tolerant ground cover. The project also replaced the old sprinkler irrigation system with a drip-irrigation system that will use less water.

"Using CalWater's numbers, we anticipate an annual water savings of close to 1 million gallons," Conroy said in an email.

"Recreation & Parks is evaluating this project, and if successful, will start to implement (the program) in other large medians and streetscapes," he said. "We do not expect to eliminate all turf, just where it makes sense for water and labor savings."

Ken Jenkins, water resource sustainability officer at CalWater, said the company is pleased to partner with the city of Bakersfield on the Rosedale Highway project and is looking forward to working with the city on future projects.

But Wednesday afternoon, a twist in the story appeared.

While the new xeriscape is expected to generate a net water savings of 1.2 million gallons per year and a savings of 11.9 million gallons over the lifetime of the project, Jenkins said, the city may not be eligible for the rebate after all.

"I've just received information that this particular project is likely outside of the Cal Water service area and will likely not qualify for this rebate," Jenkins said.

As of Wednesday evening, Conroy was unable to respond to CalWater's concern that the Rosedale project may not be eligible for the $3 per square foot rebate.

No matter which way it goes, landscaping makes up a significant amount of water use for the city, and this project has the potential to significantly reduce water use for the city.

And these water savings can be replicated by both residential and commercial customers, Jenkins said.

"Our Lawn-to-Garden program is available to both residential and non-residential customers at $3 per square foot when turf is converted to water-wise landscaping," he said.

The standard rebate for residential customers is provided for eligible turf that is converted with a minimum of 250 square feet and a maximum of 1,500 square feet, Jenkins said. The standard rebate for non-residential customers is provided for eligible turf that is converted with a minimum of 250 square feet and a maximum of 10,000 square feet.

"We can all save water every day and we encourage our customers to find the programs that will have the greatest impact for them," he said.

In the meantime, recent rains have delayed the final step of the Rosedale Highway project, probably by about two weeks, the city's Conroy said.

For more information on this and other water-saving programs, visit CalWater at calwater.com/conservation.

Reporter Steven Mayer can be reached at 661-395-7353. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @semayerTBC.