By Mackenzie Boyer
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Gator Nation Rolls Deep
This year representing the IrriGators in Las Vegas were: Drs. Michael Dukes, Melissa Baum-Haley (’11), Stacia Davis (’14), and myself.
Also representing UF was Scott Knight (Environmental Engineering ’15), who
had received a Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) scholarship.
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| From left: Drs. Michael Dukes, Melissa Baum-Haley, Stacia Davis and PhD candidate Mackenzie Boyer |
In the Audience
Some of the more memorable sessions I attended included:
Karen Guz’s (San Antonio Water) first presentation was
such a well told story that I went back for two more or her talks. I especially
liked her anecdotes about conservation efforts well-intended but misguided
(like the reuse system with potable backup that used more potable water than if
the system had just avoided reuse altogether), or with an ulterior motive
(like a certain water tower that doubles as an advertisement).
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| San Antonio Water's Karen Guz |
I saw several presentations on Cash for Grass programs including
Sarah Fleury with Castaic Lake Water Agency (take away message: don’t
automatically trust customers when they say they have turf in their
landscape) and Melissa Baum-Haley with Municipal Water District of Orange County. Both projects were hugely popular. In MWDOC’s case, paper applications
were literally stacking up day after day - the rebates of $2-$8/square
foot of turf removed coupled with California’s historic drought made the
program too attractive to too many customers.
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| Watershed Management Group's Kiernan Sikdar |
Kiernan Sikdar had me ready to move from Gainesville to Tucson
just so I could join in Watershed Management Group’s co-op program. A “barn-raising” model that can teach me how and then help me get a gorgeous
landscape that thrives from harvesting on-site water? Sign me up!
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| Waterless and fabulous: Mackenzie Boyer with urinal |
At the WaterSmart product expo, I talked shop with other attendees:
“You have AMI data?! I want AMI data!” and “Oh you aggregate your data to the
census tract level before running correlations? That’s a great approach!” I
also couldn’t help but cuddle up to a urinal in honor of some other unnamed
Gator engineers who love urine way too much.
At the Podium
As for my presentation on water restrictions in Florida's Hillsborough and
Pinellas counties, I had to begin with the embarrassing admission that
my title - Irrigation water restrictions, not as good as you think - although
supported by my preliminary data, was incongruous with the presentation I was
about to give.
Are irrigation water restrictions effective? @UF's Mackenzie Boyer presents her findings today @ 3pm Napa A #WSI2015 pic.twitter.com/lApgbCxvuv
— UF/IFAS IrriGator (@IrriGatorUF) October 8, 2015
Going from two day per week allowable irrigation to one day per
week allowable irrigation reduced annual irrigation demand by about 14%.
However, these trends don’t hold true for all customers. In a newer part of the
City of Tampa, customers actually increased their irrigation when restrictions
tightened to fewer days. What’s unique about our study is that the evaluation
period is over a decade long, where previous studies on water
restrictions have been limited to evaluation periods of two months to two
years.
Best Coast?
I spent a summer during college in Arizona working as an intern
with the Indian Health Service. I fell in love with the desert landscape and
that dry heat that is absolutely nothing like Florida’s sticky, humid summers.
Not quite being able to experience the western environment while in a
conference all day, Stacia Davis and I headed out to explore a few parks after
the conference ended.
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