Campus, News

CSULB begins drying grass on campus to save water during drought

Students will soon see green lawns at California State University, Long Beach fade to brown through the rest of the semester.

CSULB Facilities Management began the process of spraying specific grass plots with chemicals to dry them out on Saturday as the start of a several month process.

CSULB Media Director Michael Uhlenkamp said students should expect to see rapidly dying vegetation soon after being sprayed with a browning agent.

“It will take probably three to five days for the browning to take place so then the grass will actually die off,” Uhlenkamp said. “Then we’ll dig it up and we’ll start to plant the new sustainable kind of drought resistant landscape.”

On Tuesday, Facilities Management will be doing “touchup applications,” Brian McKinnon, the Facilities Management manager of Grounds and Landscape Services, said.

“It’s important to get everything killed,” McKinnon said. “You don’t want old grass growing back and ruining the new plants.”

This is one of the first steps in CSULB’s Water Action Plan, which is a drought-conscious strategy designed with the intentions to “dry” campus landscapes in corresponding with Governor Jerry Brown’s California water reduction proposal.

The plan intends to strip approximately two acres of CSULB’s lawns and replace it with new drought-tolerant terrain.

The new landscape, projected to save 3.5 million gallons of water and $15,000 in water-related maintenance each year, is being added to six locations including the campus roundabout islands and the Atherton St. entrance and lawn in front of the Hall of Science.

To prepare the campus for such drastic changes, CSULB is educating students by launching a campaign to stress the importance of water conservation and raise awareness about the drastic changes in greenery as well, Uhlenkamp said.

“Students, faculty and staff are going to notice as the grass goes from robust-green grass to brown grass to people digging these things up,” Uhlenkamp said.

Uhlenkamp said the campaign will use minimal in-house funds, using small signs to let people know what’s happening.

“The biggest idea is that we’re going to be saving money in terms of the amount of water we’re going to use,” Uhlenkamp said.

McKinnon said he will be discussing a plant palate and a redesign of the irrigation system with the master plan architect. McKinnon said that from there they bid for actual pricing.

Uhlenkamp said that CSULB’s conservation plan is directly tied to CSU Interim Vice Chancellor Sally Roush’s issue of a system-wide mandate asking all CSU campuses to reduce water usage and Brown’s announcement two weeks ago to reduce water use by 25 percent.

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