You may remember seeing a lush lawn of green grass and a few more trees at the intersection of Cook Street and Broadway, right behind Santa Maria City Hall. Those are now gone.
It's all part of the city's efforts to satisfy state water regulations.
“What we are doing is removing high water-usage turf,” said Angela Oslund, interim director of Santa Maria’s Recreation and Parks Department.
Oslund says the previous lawn will soon be replaced with smaller patches of drought-resistant grass.
“We won’t have to spend so much of our natural resources on maintaining our landscaping and keeping it beautiful,” she told KSBY.
Oslund says city crews also removed three trees from the property that were either diseased or structurally unsound.
She adds that some sprinklers around City Hall will be replaced with drip lines to conserve water.
Greg Flores, a supervisor at Farm Supply Santa Maria, says drip lines are increasingly popular among his customers as well.
“Locally, we are either in a drought situation or we are getting a lot of rain like we have been the last couple years, but most people are wanting to keep water use down to a minimum, and a drip system is a great way to do it,” he explained.
Flores says that as opposed to traditional pop-up sprinklers, drip lines bring water straight to the plant, reducing waste.
Oslund adds that once the City Hall landscaping project is complete, it could cut water use for the area by 60%.
“This is one opportunity for us to showcase water-wise landscaping and with that, reducing our irrigation output,” Oslund said.
She tells KSBY the project will be completed in three simultaneous phases around the City Hall block and should be wrapped up in about four months.
“In the coming years we will be evaluating even more turf removal projects,” Oslund added. “We are still looking for others where we can reduce that type of turf, and then move forward with more environmentally conscious, and low-water usage landscaping.”
She says the total cost of the project is estimated at around $150,000.
Lane and sidewalk closures will be in place around City Hall as the renovations continue.
