Almost every day, a City of Roseville truck with an 850-gallon tank waters several dozen trees in the city's parks.
Steve Rhoden pulls up along a row of trees at Mulhaney Park, takes a hose attached to the tank, connects the hose to a stake and drives the stake into the ground.
"We would leave that in there for approximately five minutes or so, and then rotate it around," says Rhoden. "On a larger tree like this we'd probably do four-to-five different areas, getting approximately 30 to 50 gallons on a tree like this."
DJ Ritz is Parks Supervisor. He says the department is using a "stake and sprinkler" assembly to get water underground more quickly than would be possible with surface watering.
"A lot of trees that are in the turf, out in the streetscapes where we're watering twice-a-week, it's not enough water to penetrate through to get to the roots of the tree, so this is our tack to try and get to the stressed trees and get the water down deep enough where the trees to take it in," says Ritz.
The parks department plans to switch from potable water to recycled water at several of its facilities, starting with the baseball field at Mulhaney Park.
Maurice Cheney with the City of Roseville says the private sector can also go to the city for treated, reclaimed water.
"Landscape contractors, they can contact us, get an application and they too can use recycled water to maintain those trees," says Cheney.
Cheney says the reclaimed water used to be pumped into Dry Creek but is now moved in a special, purple-colored pipe throughout the city. It costs a little more than potable water.
The parks department uses up to 8,000 gallons of water each week to water 200 trees.
City crews use reclaimed water at one-fourth of Roseville's 72 parks, with plans for more throughout the city.
The parks department conserved a little more than the rest of the city for the month of June -- 44 percent to 40 percent.
About 8 percent of the water the city uses is reclaimed water.
Follow us for more stories like this
CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today.
Donate Today
