Couldn’t make it to Irrigation Show this year? We’ve got you covered. Turf is on the ground, covering everything you need to know at the show. At the end of each day, we curate the top moments from the busy day’s events. Here are some of the top takeaways from the 2nd annual Drought Summit on Friday, Dec. 9.
The only way to identify drought solutions is through compromise, Pat Mulroy said Friday at the 2nd annual Drought Summit. Mulroy, senior fellow of climate adaptation and environmental policy at William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, said we must work to find common ground and common water solutions. Running to court and filing lawsuits hinders progress and isn’t solving water problems. “We need facilitators and not litigators. Tomorrow’s solutions are mosaics,” said Mulroy, who serves on the Wynn Resorts Ltd. Board of Directors and was former general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
Mulroy describes the California drought as a story of missed opportunities. The strategy failed and has caused human suffering and economic devastation, she says. She pressed the audience to ask: “What is our stewardship responsibility?” We can be an architect of change or its tenant, Mulroy explains. We can make the change, or live with someone else’s decision.
At the Drought Summit, Conrad Weaver, filmmaker of the documentary “Thirsty Land,” said that while traveling the country and making the film he constantly saw that “people are resilient and always looking for ways to adapt.” The film was screened on Wednesday night during the Irrigation Show, a bronze sponsor of the film, for attendees to watch. Weaver asked the audience at the Drought Summit to hold up a bottle of water if they had one. Then he asked, “if you only had one water bottle to use for the next 48 hours, how are you going to treat that water?”
Igne Bisconer, technical marketing and sales manager for Toro Micro-Irrigation, was awarded the Industry Achievement Award from the Irrigation Association. She spoke at the Drought Summit about the benefits of micro-irrigation and drip irrigation.
In her research, Bisconer compared the benefits of agricultural modernization when it comes to irrigation systems versus removing turfgrass. With some research from California’s State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP), Bisconer discovered that agricultural modernization is about 20 times more effective than ripping out turfgrass because agricultural modernization increases productivity whereas turfgrass water waste is primarily because of bad equipment, not the turfgrass itself.
The 2016 Irrigation Show and National Groundwater Week saw a significant increase in attendees compared to previous years. By co-locating in Las Vegas this year, attendees had the chance to walk the trade show floor with vendors from both associations. The 2017 Irrigation Show is scheduled for Nov. 6-10 in Orlando, Florida.
