What does the biggest property owner in Orange County do when it gets hit with aggressive mandates from Sacramento to cut water usage?
It drills.
What about when it realizes that years’ worth of prior efforts would essentially work against it? Most of the low-hanging fruit, when it comes to water conservation, had been picked by 2013, the year state officials used as a baseline in calling for drought-driven cuts of 16% in Irvine and 28% in Newport Beach, after all.
It drills deeper.
The Irvine Company didn’t go subterranean—there were no hopes of finding some undiscovered source of water far below any of the nearly 40,000 acres it owns statewide.
The Newport Beach-based developer instead drilled down into its own corporate organization and culture to take on the challenge.
It looked yet again at its retail, residential, commercial and resort properties. And it tapped into a team of 10 associates drawn from varying levels of the organization.
The early result: An average of 30% water-use reduction that’s kept Irvine Co. well ahead of the mandates.
History of Conservation
Getting there wasn’t easy.
Irvine Co. has long been making big efforts in this arena and had placed a premium on efficiency as a matter of standard operating procedure before the mandates.
Its history of water conservation efforts made it difficult to meet the reductions at first. The baseline numbers from 2013 and a lack of consideration for new construction in the two years since raised some significant hurdles. Irvine Co. has added four apartment complexes in Irvine and two high-rise offices in Newport Center over that time span, including the 20-story building now fully occupied by Pacific Investment Management Co.
“We have always been very environmentally conscious,” said Clint Collins, senior director of landscape maintenance for Irvine Co.’s office properties. “So when the VP of Environmental Affairs challenged us all to meet these mandates, it seemed impossible. I was very proud of our system already—we were already leaders in water management.”
Call it a case of enlightened self-interest.
“We are a community developer—these properties will be in our portfolio long term, so we have always thought about how to be the best stewards we can be,” said Gregg Lacagnina, vice president of facility management for Irvine Co.’s retail division, which includes 42 retail centers in its portfolio and expects to add more in Northern California this year.
Each division in the company has long had weekly meetings with representatives and contractors to review water usage and seek out improvements.
The mandates wrought by California’s drought forced them to take it up a notch, even as predictions increasingly call for an extraordinarily wet winter ahead, with an anticipated “El Nino” effect in store for the whole region.
The meetings are now supplemented by a special Water Conservation Task Force.
“We are kind of like a marathon runner that has conditioned itself,” said Dean Kirk, vice president of environmental affairs and chair of the Water Conservation Task Force. “Now we are an ultra-marathon runner. We continue to look for opportunities, and all of our guys are passionate about this. We have support from the highest levels of management.”
The task force includes representatives from the developer’s retail, office, residential and resorts units—with the heads of landscaping or facility operations for the respective divisions taking on the responsibility. Other members come from the developer’s headquarters, including the vice president of energy management, vice president of environmental affairs and compliance, and vice president of communications.
The collaboration has garnered substantial support from the company.
“If it makes sense for the property we typically are afforded the resources to … accomplish our conservation goals,” Lacagnina said. “All the divisions meet and exchange information.”
New Efforts
Irvine Co. estimates it has spent “millions of dollars” on updating irrigation systems and interior fixtures, as well as replacing thirsty turf with drought-tolerant plants over the past two and a half years.
A key program that grew out of the task force: the replacement of 16,000 toilets in its residential properties this year in Newport Beach, Irvine and San Diego. The massive effort was completed in only three months, averaging around 60 to 80 toilet replacements a day.
It cost the company almost $900,000 in Orange County—about $185 per toilet, including installation costs.
The change is expected save at least 234.7 million gallons annually—about enough to cover the amount used by the entire population of the city of La Palma for more than six months.
The new toilets, which replaced ones that used 3.5 gallons of water per flush, use 1.28 gallons per flush. Showerheads that used 2.5 gallons per minute were replaced for ones that use 1.5 gallons per minute.
“We had to use four different vendors, create a detailed schedule, and coordinate with property management and residents,” said Fred Alson, director of purchasing for Irvine Co.’s apartment division.
“The residents were happy about the short inconvenience. They get to save on their water bills and do the right thing for the environment. It was a win-win situation.”
Own Method
Multiple company representatives said they are often bombarded with pitches from companies claiming they have the “next best” product to help Irvine Co. save water. Irvine Co. developed its own method of research and development when it came to the new toilets.
“We put the toilets in actual apartments that [Irvine Co.] associates are living in and asked them to use it as normal,” Alson said. “We went in on a quarterly basis to see what kind of results we got before we decided which product to use.”
New efforts also include smart irrigation controllers, master valves with flow sensors for easy leak detection, drip irrigation systems and turf replacement. An Irvine Co. landscaping team used Google Earth to spot lone strips of turf that didn’t serve much aesthetic purpose. The teams replaced the turf with shrubs or other drought-tolerant plants and eliminated watering there.
Some of the changes mean more old-fashioned, human labor.
The turf surrounding the long-standing palm trees circling Fashion Island in Newport Beach was recently removed, along with the irrigation systems that kept it green year-round. Irvine Co. now has to hand-water all 127 palm trees about twice a month.
The payoff?
Irvine Co. will exceed the mandates if the first three months of the program are any indication. The company has cut outdoor potable water consumption from Irvine Ranch Water District by 24.3% and from the city of Newport Beach by 35.1% for the months of June, July and August.
“IRWD has a long history of working with the Irvine Company on water conservation initiatives,” said Beth Beeman, director of public affairs for the water district. “One of the most important features of any water conservation program is that it requires customer participation to be successful. The Irvine Company actively participates and is often the largest single IRWD customer to take advantage of the various programs offered by IRWD.”
Future
“What a lot of people don’t know is that all of Irvine is on a reclaimed, recycled water system,” said Collins. “It’s a planned community so they thought to put in a reclaimed water system back in the 1960s. It’s that old ‘master planning, forward thinking’ kind of thing.”
Community wastewater is collected and treated at the Michelson Water Recycling Plant in Irvine and the Los Alisos Water Recycling Plant in Lake Forest. It is then reused for nondrinking water purposes, such as irrigation and toilet flushing.
Reclaimed water isn’t figured into calculations for compliance with the statewide mandates. Irvine Co. is looking into tapping into the reclaimed water network for nondrinking supplies in Newport Beach, but the task isn’t easy—or cheap. Some of the company’s properties are close to a “purple pipe,” including the new apartment complex at San Joaquin and Jamboree and the Eastbluff Shopping Center, making it fairly simple to get them on the reclaimed water system.
Other properties aren’t so easy, requiring completely new infrastructure and costly construction.
“Bringing reclaimed water all the way to Newport Beach is a multimillion-dollar proposition,” said Collins. “But it’s definitely something we are looking into because it’s the smart thing to do long term.”
The Water Conservation Task Force appears bound to remain on the hunt for other smart things to do wherever they might be found in the sprawling operations of Orange County’s biggest landlord.
It will likely have full support of their proposals from the top tier, regardless of the expense.
“We are able to react so quickly … because … it’s engrained in our culture, and … we have support from the very top and people who understand this,” said Kirk. “We are able to get a plan together and implement it in a few months—and we are typically given the financial resources to get it done because the company knows how important it is.”
