The Long Beach Water Department announced yesterday their completion of all nine of their free Long Beach residential front-yard landscape makeover projects providing the finishing touch to their citywide conservation communications initiative. The initiative was launched in reaction to the September 2007 Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners approval of a “Declaration of Imminent Water Supply Shortage” and their eventual mandatory prohibitions on certain outdoor uses of water.

The nine homes, one from each of the nine council districts in Long Beach, were the winners of a citywide opportunity drawing last year in which thousands of homeowners participated.  The new landscapes, all professionally designed and installed, and with individual budgets of up to $10,000, were funded by the Long Beach Water Department.

Kevin Wattier, General Manager of the Long Beach Water Department stated in a prepared release:   “The completion of these water-friendly landscapes couldn’t have come at a better time. We are well into the third year of a statewide drought and our imported water supplies are becoming less reliable by the day.  One of the primary goals of our conservation program is to make people more aware of the options available to them to reduce household water consumption.  We knew that offering this opportunity to Long Beach residents would provide a unique way for us to raise awareness of the benefits of water-efficient landscaping and would also support and complement the Water Department’s on-going efforts to cause a permanent change in the way that people think about and use water.”

The home makeover projects can be seen in a 30-minute video currently being produced and will run on local channel LBTV 8 and on the Water Department’s website www.lbwater.org.

Disclosure: The Long Beach Water Department is a staging-live.lbpost.com advertiser.