To fight rising issues of drought increasingly plaguing the Western U.S., many states have introduced pressure-regulating sprinkler legislation. States like California; Colorado; Hawaii; Maine; Massachusetts; Vermont, Washington and Washington, D.C., all have pressure regulating sprinkler requirements. One of the newest states to join this PRS list is Oregon, after Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed the legislation into law March 2.
According to Oregon House Bill 4057, spray sprinkler bodies manufactured after Jan. 1, 2023, and included in the scope of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense Specification for Spray Sprinkler Bodies, Version 1.0, “must include an integral pressure regulator and meet the water efficiency and performance criteria and other requirements of that specification.”
For Molly McDowell Dunston, CIC, owner and operator of Water Whys Irrigation in Bend, Oregon, the passing of this legislation represents Oregon finally joining the party of water conservation and efficiency.
“We’ve been in a drought here for a long time,” McDowell Dunston says. “It seems a little late in my opinion, but I’m glad it’s finally happening.”
McDowell Dunston is no stranger to pressure-regulated spray heads or using additional methods to make her irrigation systems as efficient as possible. For the past 10 years, she’s used check valves where appropriate and installed pressure regulated spray heads everywhere.
She cites benefits to using pressure-regulated sprinkler heads as water conservation, improved distribution uniformity and decreased water costs.
“(Using pressure-regulated sprinkler heads) has been a no-brainer ever since I learned what the benefits are and that it’s an option,” McDowell Dunston says. “… I always used to tell people, ‘Before we’re legislated and told what we should do, we should already be doing the right thing.’”
It doesn’t take much work for McDowell Dunston to convince her customers to use pressure-regulated sprinkler heads. She explains that because Bend is in the high desert where the soil is porous and doesn’t have enough organic material to have good holding capacity for water and nutrients, landscape requires a special science.
“Somebody who wants a lawn here, they’re probably pretty attached to that and want it to look as ideal as possible,” McDowell Dunston says. “For those clients, pressure regulation is kind of a cheap insurance policy to make sure that that lawn stays as aesthetic as possible.”
But the legislation created more than just an opportunity for irrigation professionals in the state to conserve water. It also produced much-needed hope for future change via education, McDowell Dunston says.
“It’s going to make (contractors) think a couple steps further on ‘If this makes a difference, what else could make a difference? They’re telling us we have to do something now, should we be doing things in other places?’” McDowell Dunston says.
McKenna Corson is the digital content editor for Irrigation & Lighting and can be reached at mckennacorson@irrigation.org.
Read more about other states introducing PRS legislation.
