Congrats are in order to the City of Santa Clarita for achieving “Silver” status as a California Green Community for its commitment to sustainability. Santa Clarita is one of only four cities (Claremont, Monrovia, and Riverside) to be honored by California Green Communities for its efforts.The Silver status was presented by EMA, Southern California Edison (SCE) and Green Seal – founding partners in California Green Communities.
“We created California Green Communities to showcase what cities are doing to improve the quality of life for their residents,” said EMA President Debbie Levin. “Santa Clarita is a leader among southern California cities who are modeling sustainable practices for others.”
California Green Communities is a community-based effort that encourages cities to adopt environmentally sound practices involving energy efficiency, waste reduction, water conservation, renewable and alternative fuels, efficient transportation and other activities. Cities develop unique action plans to identify projects and activities they will implement to reach Silver, Gold and Platinum status in the program.
As a part of its California Green Communities Action Plan, Santa Clarita replaced more than 500 obsolete irrigation controllers with smart, weather-based irrigation controllers in water parks, medians and streetscaping to save millions of gallons of water and increase savings. The new controllers access real-time weather information via the Internet to determine the right time and amount of water needed to irrigate various landscaped areas based on solar radiation, wind, humidity and temperature. The system is similar to a home thermostat, measuring temperature and adjusting accordingly.
Since installation, the City’s irrigation-water management system has grown to become the world’s largest smart-controller water system and in the last year alone, this system has reduced the City’s annual water consumption by more than 150 million gallons.
“The City of Santa Clarita places a high priority on reducing its environmental footprint and preserving our community and its resources for generations to come,” said Santa Clarita Mayor Laurie Ender. “We are committed to being one of the state’s leading green communities and are working towards achieving Platinum status in this program.”
Created in November 2009, California Green Communities is an environmental recognition program that fosters innovative ways for participating cities to reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption, while building vibrant, sustainable communities.
Other cities participating in the program – Culver City, Los Angeles, Redlands, San Gabriel, Santa Monica, Simi Valley and Ventura – are making progress towards certification as well.