Oakland A's, San Francisco Giants Tighten Up Their Water Usage During Drought
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) – Both Bay Area Major League Baseball teams are trying to do their part to help conserve water as the state continues to deal with the drought.
The two biggest users of water are irrigation and stadium maintenance for both the Oakland A's and San Francisco Giants.
Dave Rinetti, operations director for the A's, said they are developing a plan to cut down on watering times when they clean up the stadium and could also slow the flow to the showers. But with such an old infrastructure at the Coliseum, the team doesn't have much flexibility.
Meanwhile, at AT&T Park, Giants spokeswoman Staci Slaughter said they're relying on new technology to keep the field in playing condition.
"We have a new irrigation clock, which receives weather conditions and it enables us to determine how much watering we need to do," Slaughter said. "We're expecting to see about a 30-50 percent drop in the amount of irrigation water usage. The other thing we've also done is we've changed our infield mix a little bit so it also reduces the amount of watering that we need to do on the field by about 33 percent."
The Giants are also asking fans to do a better job cleaning up after themselves, as peanut and sunflower seed shells are some of the toughest things to power wash away.
