How much water is needed for this field?

Have you ever wondered how much grass is at a Major League Baseball stadium? We did and found the answer.

The average professional baseball field will use around 100,000 square feet of turf (~2.25 acres), which will need approximately 62,500* gallons of water per week (under normal watering schedule of 1″/week). This is equivalent to the amount of water 89 homes will use in the same amount of time.

Can we justify using drinking water to irrigate grass for our national pastime?

As this blog discovered last year, of all five professional MLB stadiums in California, none of them utilize the drought resistant resource known as recycled water, when irrigating the ball field.

Do you remember S.F. Giants pitcher Sergio Romo’s commercial about reducing your water usage? Let me jog your memory.


California homeowners reduced their water usage, except for ball club members like Giants pitcher Matt Cain, Giants catcher Buster Posey and Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, who all made EBMUDs drought shame list for using over 1,000 gallons per day. Just like the bright green grass at their ball park, they feel entitled to keeping their lawns alive while we are being told to rip ours out or let it go brown.

Does this surprise you? Not me.

GWRS at Orange County Water District

GWRS at Orange County Water District

Of all California MLB stadiums,

  1. Angels Stadium in Anaheim uses groundwater for irrigation, which is sourced from recycled water via the groundwater replenishment system.
  2. San Francisco Giants stadium was dual plumbed for recycled water when it was built, but uses grossly expensive Hetch Hetchy drinking water as recycled water isn’t available from the city.
  3. Los Angeles Dodger Stadium tried to get a recycled water pipeline installed but nearby neighbors didn’t want to be inconvenienced by construction.
  4. San Diego Padres at Petco Park is too far from any recycled water distribution pipeline, thus they’re using drinking water to irrigate grass in a desert.
  5. Oakland Athletics play at O.Co Stadium and are in a similar boat as the Padres, EBMUD doesn’t have a recycled water pipeline anywhere near the stadium. Abby Figueroa – Senior Public Information Representative of EBMUD said “The Oakland Coliseum with its expanse of turf would be a great candidate to use recycled water for irrigation. The challenge is location.“

What’s the take away? Next time you see a baseball game, check out how much drinking water is being used on the ball field for dust control or keeping the field green. Remind yourself, that’s the water we’re supposed to be conserving. All that conservation is laughing in your face.

“That’s Whats Up!”

 

  • 62,500 is a very conservative number. We know as homeowners, even if the directions say 1 inch of water per week, we definitely do more.