May is Water Awareness Month and it is during this time Irvine Ranch Water District and the California Water Awareness Campaign helps customers rediscover the most precious resource on Earth. In life or business, everything begins with water, and in California, every drop counts. 

“It’s important for residents to know where their water comes from and that it needs to used wisely in both wet years and dry,” said IRWD Board President Mary Aileen Matheis.

Annually IRWD marks Water Awareness Month by educating our customers on several Resident Tours. The next tour is Saturday, May 19. These tours are an excellent way to learn about IRWD, how water gets to the tap and what happens after it goes down the drain. Tour information is located on our website.

The Water Awareness Campaign was born from one of the state's worst droughts, from 1987 to 1992. In Southern California, a normal rainfall year could be followed by several drought years. We basically live in a desert without many natural water sources, so it needs to be imported from somewhere else.

Where your water comes from depends on where you live within the water district. IRWD drinking water comes from two primary sources – local groundwater and imported water.  Blending of these two sources varies according to the time of year.

Approximately 48 percent of our overall supply comes from local groundwater wells in the Orange County Groundwater Basin, and the Irvine and Lake Forest sub-basins. In 1979, the Dyer Road Wellfield Project was developed in Santa Ana and provides low-cost, high-quality drinking water. IRWD operates 25 groundwater wells in our service area, with more planned and under development.

Around 27 percent of IRWD’s drinking water is purchased from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. This imported water comes from the Colorado River via the Colorado River Aqueduct and from Northern California via the State Water Project, or California Aqueduct.  The Colorado River Aqueduct water must travel 250 miles to reach Orange County, while the State Water Project transports supplies more than 400 miles.

Additionally, IRWD has an impressive recycled water program. At IRWD, we believe water is too valuable to only use once, so every drop of recycled water used for irrigation, industrial uses and toilet flushing, saves drinking water. This allows us to keep our water rates low.

One of our newest additions to our water portfolio is water banking. This is an important tool and opportunities for groundwater banking programs in Southern California are limited. IRWD has entered into a 30-year water banking partnership with the Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District in Kern County. Unlike other existing Kern County water banking arrangements, IRWD's partnership with Rosedale provides long-term equity ownership of water banking capacity rather than the typical contract or lease arrangements employed by other agencies.

Information about the IRWD water supply is available at our website.

Solar Cup team members from El Toro High School were busy putting on the last minute finishing touches to their boat before the technical inspection by Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) engineers.

“We’re still working on the steering assembly,” said instructor Doug Ford. “Things will go quickly over this next week.”

This is the seventh consecutive year that IRWD has teamed up with students from the El Toro High School Engineering Club for the annual race, held at Lake Skinner in Temecula the weekend of May 18-20. The event is hosted by MWD and is in its 10^th year.

Solar Cup is a seven-month program that begins in the fall with boat-building workshops at Three Valleys Municipal Water District in Claremont, and culminates with the race. Teams from 42 high schools from Ventura to San Diego counties are participating in this year’s event. Over the years, more than 7,500 students have participated in Solar Cup, which allows students to apply their skills in math, physics, engineering and communications, while learning about Southern California’s water sources, resource management and alternative energy development.

For more information about IRWD education programs, please visit our website.

Six students in grades two through nine had their water conservation-themed artwork selected by the Municipal Water District of Orange County as winners in the annual Water Awareness Poster-Slogan Contest. More than 800 original posters were submitted by students countywide. One of the students was a grand prize winner for her submission in the Digital Arts Contest.

“These students demonstrate the effectiveness of water education,” said IRWD Board President Mary Aileen Matheis. “It also shows that they understand the importance of water and using it wisely.”

IRWD participates in the MWDOC contest every year and in a poster contest sponsored by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. IRWD has a consistent record of students being honored by both organizations.

Winning the grand prize in the digital arts contest was Andrea Zhang, a ninth grader at Northwood High School.  She used an Adobe Photoshop program to paint her picture, starting from a blank canvas. She won a Kindle Fire.

Winning in the poster category were:

• Aarya Padhye, second grade, Springbrook Elementary
• Max Schoeneberger, fifth grade, La Madera Elementary
• Yasmin Lissa Fukushima, second grade, Tustin Ranch Elementary
• Arlana May, fifth grade, Santiago Hills Elementary
• Matthieu Huy, fourth grade, Foothill Ranch Elementary

An awards ceremony was held at the Discovery Science Center on May 30.

For more information about IRWD education programs, please visit our website.

Four Irvine students were honored at the May 29 Irvine Ranch Water District Board of Directors meeting for their water-related science fair projects. Their projects were judged by members of the IRWD Water Quality Laboratory staff during the February 29 science fair at University High School.

“These projects are exemplary,” said Board President Mary Aileen Matheis, who assisted in distributing certificates to the students.

Board member Peer Swan agreed, saying, “Hats off to all of you.”

IRWD has participated in the Irvine Unified School District’s science fair since it began more than 20 years ago. The process begins in the fall with Ask-a-Scientist Night. IRWD staff from Water Quality and the Engineering departments are on-hand to answer questions students might have about potential science fair projects, and to offer assistance.

The day of the science fair, IRWD staff members look for water-related projects from the hundreds submitted, then they are judged based on the use of the scientific method, creativity, relevance, completeness of research and evidence of problem solving.

The students each receive a certificate and IRWD donates $100 in honor of each student to their respective schools for the purchase of books or science equipment. In addition, $100 is donated to the school district to support the science fair.

Winners this year included:

Gopal Vashishtha, 9^th grade, University High School, “The Effect of Manufactured Nanoscale Zinc Oxide on Filtration Rate and Particle Size Distribution in Membrane Biological Reactor Systems in the Wastewater Treatment Process.” Gopal set out to find the effect of elevated manufactured nanoparticle concentration, specifically zinc oxide, on filtration rate and particle distribution in Membrane Biological Reactors, or MBR, in the wastewater treatment process. To note, many popular and effective sunscreens contain nano-zinc oxide. It is thought that this type of material eventually fouls membrane filters, resulting in higher operational costs. He conducted his research using tap water and wastewater samples he received from IRWD. After various tests and experiments, he found that all three types of nanoscale zinc oxide types he used caused tap water flux to vary and the differences between the three used with secondary effluent to be imperceptible. Gopal’s project went on to county competition, where he received an Honorable Mention, then to state competition, where he received a Second Place.

Elizabeth Chang, 6^th Grade, Plaza Vista School, “Evaporating Waters.”  Elizabeth asked the question – will different liquid evaporate at different rates? She used water, alcohol, corn syrup, oil and milk and hypothesized that water would evaporate quicker. She looked up the boiling and freezing points, and vaporization points for each. Her experiment was conducted over nine days. She took measurements every other day.  At the conclusion, she found that alcohol actually evaporated the quickest, with water being a close second.

Zach Howard, 6^th grade, Oak Creek School, “Where are the Highest Bacteria Levels, the Back Bay, Newport Harbor, or Newport Beach?”  Zach said he believed that water from Newport Harbor would contain the highest bacteria counts because of boat pollution in the harbor, excess waste from homes and other non-point sources. In order, he believed that bacteria levels would be high in San Diego Creek, higher in the Back Bay, with the lowest at Newport Beach. His interest was spurred from past participation in the Newport Beach Junior Lifeguard program. He took samples from seven different areas and used Petri dishes, monitoring the bacteria growth daily. The conclusion was that the Back Bay source, the Eastbluff storm drain, had the highest concentration of bacteria.

Louis Primeau, 6^th grade, Turtle Rock School, “Effect of Elevated CO2 on the Growth of Freshwater Algae.” Louis set out to find out what rising CO2 levels brought on by climate change means for the environment. He collected water from the Mason Park and to obtain algae cells and grew the algae in four bottles with plenty of nutrients and light. In two bottles, he bubbled extra CO2 and the other two bottles were used as controls. At the end of his experiment, Louis concluded that adding CO2 to algae resulted in faster grown than without adding CO2. However, there was much variability in the growth rate on a day-to-day basis, making the results uncertain. Louis’ project went on to the county competition, where he received a third place award and continued on to statewide competition.

For more information about IRWD educational programs, please visit our website.