This morning at 5 am Redlands Water and Power Company began pumping irrigation water after a 4-day shutdown. Crews worked really hard to drive and get repairs performed in Denver. In addition to fixing the 85-year old hydroelectric generator, it appears obvious that the company could provide much more education to water users on their website.

I saw on our Nextdoor neighborhood account people asking if they should turn off irrigation pumps at home during the outage. Yes, when there is no water turn off the electricity to prevent the pumps from burning up before they run dry. Here are some helpful hints from Rain Brothers.

Also, people often do not know when or how much water to apply to grass. As we drove around the community at 4 pm today, we saw many people watering during the heat of the day. The best time to water grass is after the sun goes down when it is cool so the grass does not get burned. Overwatering can also cause grass to die and we see much of the irrigation water going down the drain.

This morning our son caught his first fish, two small mouth bass, at Connected Lakes State Park. Then in the late afternoon he got to play with a remote control power boat on a pond at Canyonview Park.

Balancing competing water demands of irrigation and recreation requires better understanding of sustainability and education.

Happy Independence Day 2017!