‘Nuisance water’ being used to keep lawn green, springs flowing year-round at Civic Park

SAN ANTONIO – The time period “nuisance water” would possibly have a detrimental connotation, however that’s now not the case for San Antonio’s latest public park — Civic Park at Hemisfair.

“The nuisance water system that we have here at Civic Park is one of the most unique features about the park,” mentioned Meredith Balzen, Hemisfair director of exterior members of the family.

The nuisance water underneath the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center is a part of the original irrigation machine at the park, which formally opened in past due September.

“What the design does is capture that nuisance water from the French drains around the convention center,” mentioned Tom Hull, SKANSKA senior venture supervisor. “We’re able to capture that before it went down to the city storm sewer system and redirect it on site.”

The groundwater is then filtered and fed to the good lawn and 5 connecting springs that constitute the Texas Hill Country.

The water does now not come from the Edwards Aquifer or the town’s water machine, which means there might be no watering restrictions all through drought sessions.

“Believe it or not, we installed this lawn in July when we were in the middle of the 103, 105-degree days. This lawn was fully irrigated with that nuisance water. We never had to pull potable water and this lawn was emerald green from the day we put it in.”

Another attention-grabbing side of the irrigation machine is the underground cistern immediately beneath the good lawn. It is a complete of 40 ft beneath flooring and collects greater than 41,000 gallons of water.

“If you can imagine, it’s as big as a swimming pool, it’s huge,” mentioned Balzen.

“There are 16 different parts that made a kind of clamshell. There’s eight bottom pieces and they go around, they interlock together. They butt next to each other and there’s a top piece that goes over it to create a box,” mentioned Hull. “The excavation was pretty large, pretty impressive. It was a really interesting build, not something you do every day.”

The irrigation machine additionally waters the park’s 200 timber and shrubs, all a part of Hemisfair’s self-sustainability and conservation efforts at Civic Park.

“When we were thinking about the design, we were thinking about water sustainability and being able to use nuisance water is one of the most sustainable practices that we could think of,” mentioned Balzen. “It’s been such a joy to watch people come in and enjoy the springs, dip their feet in the water.”

“Nuisance water is a little bit more novel. That’s not really used much around San Antonio, but Hemisfair had a lot of forethought on how to design this park and realized it was easy to capture through construction and really provides this park a sustainable way to maintain the green grass and beautiful trees,” mentioned Hull.