Car washes have two superpowers. They keep your car sparkly clean. And compared to washing a vehicle with a hose and soapy water, they can save water.

Checkered Flag Express Car Wash in Lake Forest is a star example. The local business was recently honored by IRWD as a certified WaterStar. By employing a water-recirculation system, it uses about 75% less drinking water on average for each vehicle washed, compared to traditional car wash methods. Recirculation technology retrieves water used in the washing process, removes dirt from the water through filtration or treatment systems, then reuses the water on the next wash or subsequent rinse.

A typical traditional car wash uses 50–80 gallons of fresh water per vehicle. Checkered Flag’s system uses fewer than 20, making up the difference with reused water. Thus, one car wash can save more than 6 million gallons of drinking water a year.

The water eventually is released into the sewage collection system—where it is reborn yet again through IRWD’s recycling process.

To find a car wash in your area with a recirculated-water system, watch for ads online, in local papers, and on car wash signs.

2016 World Junior Figure Skating champion Marin Honda of Japan takes Great Park Ice for a spin during warmups for the March 7 grand opening

Lace up those skates and hit the rink. You won’t be wasting water at the Great Park Ice & FivePoint Arena sports complex.

The Anaheim Ducks’ new training complex—which celebrated its grand opening in April—will feature three National Hockey League-size ice rinks and one Olympic-size rink. So it will use a lot of water. About 4.3 million gallons are needed to make the ice each year, including the water sprayed from the back of Zambonis during resurfacing.

The good news: It’s Irvine Ranch Water District recycled water. And every gallon of recycled water saves a gallon of drinking water for use in homes and businesses.

“This has been an innovative collaboration between the Ducks’ foundation and IRWD, and the whole community will benefit,” IRWD Recycled Water Project Specialist Gabe Vargas said. “It’s the first dual-plumbed complex in IRWD’s service area constructed to use recycled water for ice—and the second in Southern California.”

In addition to serving as the Ducks’ training facility, Great Park Ice will host youth and adult hockey, world-class figure-skating competitions, and public open skating.

The 280,000-square-foot complex is situated on 13.5 acres near the Palm Court at the Great Park in Irvine. Like all of the Great Park, its landscape is irrigated with recycled water.

What is Recycled Water?

Learn how recycling saves water while keeping our community green and beautiful. Watch our three-minute video at IRWD.com/recycledwater

Evenings will become lighter beginning Sunday, March 10, 2019, as we set our clocks forward one hour for daylight saving time.

Remember to make this adjustment to your clocks before you go to bed Saturday night.

The semiannual time changes coincide with seasonal changes in weather, when irrigation controllers and sprinkler times should change. Your landscape’s water needs decrease as the days get shorter and cooler, and increase as days get longer and hotter, so it’s a good idea to check your controller at the same time you change your clocks.

To ensure that your sprinkler schedule is not interrupted, change the batteries in your controller as well. Most controllers use a 9-volt battery to maintain the programmed schedule in the case of a power outage. When the controller battery dies, the schedule automatically resets to the factory default of watering 10 minutes a day, seven days a week.

And while you are changing out your irrigation controller battery, it’s also a good time to change out the batteries in your home smoke detectors.

The Irvine Ranch Water District invites students to create a poster that shows how to use water wisely at home, school, business or in agriculture, or show how saving water can help the environment. Winning posters will be submitted to regional competitions sponsored by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Municipal Water District of Orange County. Top posters may be selected to appear in the water awareness calendar for 2020. Posters will be selected based on the originality and clarity of the message as well as the artistic level and the overall uniqueness. The posters will be judged within grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12, so everyone has a chance to win!

The submission deadline is March 15, 2019.

Find out more details at irwd.com/postercontest.

Read the rules and fill out an entry form at irwd.com/images/pdf/learning/water_awareness_poster_contest_entry_flyer_2019.pdf.