Pueblo Mental Health Irrigation Project Prog Report

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. allowing construction to start to occur in January, 1995. The hardware and software for the Rainbird System was received in March, 1995, Project work progressed slowly through the Spring of 1995 due to very wet periods in May and June, As of this date the remaining work includes the plumbing work on the last of the six satellites and the electrical work on the last two satellites and setting and terminating the last two satellites. Additional data entry and training on the use of the central computer is also still left to do. This work will be complete by the end of July. The weather station was purchased from additional funds by the Department of Human Services and will be set up in July, 1995 to complete the full features of the system. Additional field satellites and corresponding electrical and plumbing trim were purchased by the Department for the next phases of the project, but will not likely be installed until Fall, 1995. As of this date, four of the six satellites are operating on the irrigation management system with manual entry of ET data until the weather station is set up. The monitoring system that will be used to measure the effectiveness of the system will be as described in the original grant application and will include estimation of irrigation usage based on separation of the non-irrigation domestic usage as calculated by Winter water meter readings and adjusted for actual weather conditions as they relate to evapotranspiration. As an additional measure, the individual flow meters at each watering location will give an accurate record of the amount of water applied on that portion of the campus under control of the irrigation management system. The water conservation project received Department-wide recognition through the Department newsletter "In Sight", The project has also spawned interest, throughout the Facilities Management section of the Department in pursuing similar projects at all of the Department of Human Services locations and has heightened awareness of opportunities to seek out other types of water conservation projects. Because the City of Pueblo also utilizes the Rainbird System throughout its park system, we have had some preliminary discussions regarding cooperative efforts such as allowing the City to access the weather station at our site to more effectively water some of the nearby park sites. Opportunities to share information with other State of Colorado agencies in the Pueblo area will also be investigated, A final report will be prepared for the Office of Water Conservation by November 1, 1995, detailing the results of the partial first year of system operation. Annual reports will be prepared under the same format for subsequent years and will be available to the Office of Water Conservation and other interested agencies upon request.