Dear Red Phone, “Here we are in this drought and the City of Gilroy is overwatering one part and at Las Animas Park they’ve had a leak for three months. You can just see this big puddle of water just to the east of the tennis courts. There’s a road the city workers drive on and there’s a lake. C’mon, they don’t care. At El Roble Park there’s a couple of paths and they’re almost unwalkable due to overwatering. We’re supposed to cut back and they’re overwatering. I’m ripping out my lawn so I don’t have to water, and they’re going nuts. Thank you.”
& Red Phone: Dear Reader, here is a response to your question from Supervisor Bill Headley with City Parks and Landscape.
“Because of winter drought conditions, we have been compelled to provide irrigation to the park turf beginning in January. Depending on the park, current irrigation frequency has been one to three times per week. Most of the irrigation system controllers are connected to a special park weather station that will stop the irrigation controller cycling when sensors detect sufficient rainfall for that day.
The City has millions of tax dollars invested in sports and recreation park turf areas requiring care and maintenance as would be needed for public buildings and vehicles. Proper monitoring of irrigation is required by City maintenance staff.
Water conservation usage review is conducted monthly for each City park and landscaped facility. All City maintenance staff have been reminded to minimize irrigation runoff and to make prompt irrigation repairs when found.
At Las Animas Veterans Park, park staff investigated the chronic puddle on the park pathway leaving the Wayland Parking lot near the Tennis courts and found no irrigation leaks. Park staff believes the puddle is a drainage problem and plans to fix pathway grade and adjacent turf grade.”
Headley notes that vehicles have also driven off the edge of the pathway, causing indentations in the turf that result in additional puddles.
“There is a historical south turf area design problem with the original park design from 1975-1976 at Las Animas Veterans Park,” Headley continues. “The turf and irrigation constructed for the south half of the park was installed first. A decomposed granite pathway was later installed without redesign of the irrigation system, causing irrigation coverage onto the pathway. Chronic wet pathway issues at this facility have existed for more than 40 years. Current park design policies requires irrigation not to over-spray onto park pathways.
Hardscape construction such as concrete for pathways in city parks is the current standard. Gravel or decomposed granite is not used for standard park pathways now. Corrective measures for the existing south side irrigation and pathways at Las Animas would be very costly. This pathway section of Las Animas also lacks night pathway lights which were not funded at the time of construction in 1975 and 1976. The updated Las Animas master plan calls for major future redesign of this turf and pathway area.”
Bill Headley can be reached at (408) 846-0283.
