This Baseball Team Is Leading The Field In Sports Team Water Conservation
As many U.S. regions grow drier by the day, groups across the gamut are thinking about what they can do to conserve drinking water. And as they do, many should consider looking toward one notable organization in California that has been stepping up to do its part: Major League Baseball (MLB)’s San Francisco Giants.
“To reduce water use, the Giants made a flurry of changes,” NBC Washington reported. “The first was changing the toilets to low-flow models that use less water per flush.”
In addition to saving three-quarters of the water of normal toilets through that measure, the Giants have also stopped pressure washing their ballpark after every game, have installed sensors to monitor weather conditions and reduce the amount of water used in field irrigation, and more.
“The San Francisco Giants estimate they’re using about 33% to 50% less water irrigating the field, a big deal considering droughts in California and around the country are only expected to worsen as the climate change crisis steepens,” per NBC Washington.
The efforts were first inspired in 2015, when California’s then-governor Jerry Brown announced that the state’s historic drought deserved unprecedented action.
“Brown would go on to issue the first mandatory water use reduction in the state’s history,” according to NBC Washington. “Under the mandate, the State Water Resources Control Board cut back how much water it provided to local agencies by 25%. California residents were asked to change how much they shower, how often they wash their cars and to cut their water use in general.”
Of course, California’s drought issues are just as serious today as they were back then.
Since its efforts began, the Giants have received MLB’s Green Glove Award for the league’s highest waste-diversion rate in 10 out of the last 11 years that it’s been given out. And though it is leading professional sports in water-conservation efforts, the team is apparently inspiring others to catch up as well.
“In Minnesota, the Twins, they actually capture all the rainwater,” MLB’s senior director of facilities and sustainability told NBC Washington. “They take that and use that for other things in the ballpark that have to happen to play baseball.”
To read more about how water systems overcome the obstacles presented by drought, visit Water Online’s Water Scarcity Solutions Center.