In response to California’s ongoing drought, Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this month made history by implementing new mandatory water restrictions, ordering cities and towns to reduce water usage by 25% and take a variety of other measures to respond to the crisis.
Luckily, Ojai Valley School is one step ahead of curve.
In late March, the maintenance crew began tearing out nearly 13,000 square feet of grass in front of the girls’ dorm, installing in its place decomposed granite walkways, a bed of wood chips and more than 150 drought-tolerant plants.
The project will save an estimated 11,000 gallons of water a week.
“Our plan is to share these efforts with the OVS community and with the larger Ojai community,” said AP Environmental Science teacher John Wickenhaeuser, who recently was appointed to a new role of director of sustainability. “As a school, we want to share what we have learned reducing our water use.”
This isn’t the only thing OVS has done to reduce water usage.
Last year, in response to a previous request by the governor to cut water usage by 20%, both the Upper and Lower campuses installed flow timers and weather monitors designed to use water as efficiently as possible.
“Since 2010, we have reduced water usage on this campus by 44%,” Mr. Wickenhaeuser said. “We started doing that before most of these drought requirements were put in place.”