The Water Zone

Guest host and interviewer Travis Loop, producer of Water Loop podcast interviews Laura Paskus, author of "At the Precipice: New Mexico's Changing Climate” about the status of the Rio Grande River and the importance of the locals’ perspective on the state efforts to better control ground water use.

(Podcast recorded on April 8, 2021)

The Water Zone hosts a full house of guests, including world renowned marine artist Wyland, Steve Creech, Wyland Foundation President, Dr. Patti Filino from Tuttle Elementary School, and Darren Gruner, Executive Producer of Turfs Up Radio. All were on hand to discuss the National Mayor's Challenge for Water Conservation, celebrating its 10 year anniversary. Wyland described the motivation behind the creation of the annual event that has grown to over 3,600 city participants across the nation. Steve Creech provides details on various conservation activities the foundation produces every year for communities and schools. Dr. Filino addresses why her school was selected to host of the kick-off event for 2021 with local, county and state officials. Guest host Darren Gruner joins the conversation.

(Podcast recorded on April 1, 2021)

Reese Tisdale is the President of Bluefield Research, and specializes in analyzing data for the water and power industries. Reese discusses strategies for addressing water scarcity and the value of water in the future. He explores risks facing the water industry including terrorism and cyber security, and explains how different industries look at water for private and corporate opportunities.

(Podcast recorded on March 25, 2021)

Madelyn Glickfeld, Director of the UCLA Water Resources Group, discusses the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability’s activities around safe and reliable drinking water, the types of contamination identified in Los Angeles County’s disadvantaged communities as well as rural communities in the Salinas Valley. She also shares her work examining the ability of the smaller disadvantaged Los Angeles County water systems to deliver affordable, safe and reliable water.

(Podcast recorded on March 18, 2021)

Kellogg Garden Organics Chairwoman, Kathy Kellogg Johnson, returns to expand on how important it is to have living soil that contains various biologic type amendments to replenish dead soil. She talks in depth about microbe activities, soil structures, ordinary versus synthetic soils and how living soil can help significantly reduce water use in our gardens and flowerbeds.

(Podcast recorded on March 4, 2021)

Arizona Cardinals turf manager, Andy Levy, discusses field maintenance and preparation for practice and for game day. Andy describes the unique challenges and opportunities presented while managing State Farm Arena, a first of its kind retractable natural turf field in North America. He shares the arena’s roll-out field utilizes an irrigation system incorporated within itself and details the specialized care and preparation that goes into this exceptional sports facility.

(Podcast recorded on February 25, 2021)

Featured guest Scott Bowen, Director of Water Management for Outdoor Systems Management, discusses his involvement in designing, installing and maintaining many prominent PGA golf courses and Major League Baseball sports complexes. Scott addresses how precision irrigation maintenance plays an extremely important role in preparing fields before play and the types of soils, grasses and other irrigation components that are utilized to enhance the action on the field.

(Podcast recorded on February 18, 2021)

Brian Whitcher, District Sales Manager for The Toro Company shares the ways that technology has become a driving force in the development of water efficient irrigation products. He discusses the critical impact that landscape contractors, irrigation distributors and end users’ have on the adoption and application of new smart irrigation products and explores the unique irrigation needs in one of his largest territories.

(Podcast recorded on February 11, 2021)

Featured guest, Greg Chick, an author, landscape contractor, teacher, certified irrigation auditor and successful plumber, discusses his book All About Water: As Told By The Plumber Who’s Seen It All. Greg explores the need for a deeper understanding of water conservation among consumers and how water systems really work.

(Podcast recorded on February 3, 2021)

Featured guest Chris Austin, purveyor of Maven's Notebook, a California water blog discusses how a water war on the King's River could alter the valley as we know it. Austin also shares that 1.6 million California households are facing water shutoffs due to COVID-19 and how this serious public concern is being addressed. Finally, Austin sheds light on how atmospheric rivers bringing fierce rain storms are impacting the west.

(Podcast recorded on January 28, 2021)

Featured guests: Mary Eggert, Executive Director of Global Water Works, Gary Wong, Principal of Global Water Industry at OsiSoft, and Mariyana Spyropoulos, District Commissioner Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. Our guests discuss the future of water and approaches to help communities accelerate resilience against floods, natural disasters and climate change.

(Podcast recorded on January 14, 2021)

Featured guest Kathy Kellogg Johnson, Chairwoman of Kellogg Garden Products discusses rebuilding the earth with organic soil. Johnson describes how soil contains life and that re-energizing soil helps the earth reduce dangerous methane and increase the agriculture production.

(Podcast recorded on January 8, 2021)

Featured guests were John McPhee, General Manager and Dan Winterton, Director of Marketing of the Toro Irrigation and Lighting division. McPhee and Winterton discussed their division's sustainability mission which includes their commitment to responsible environmental practices as well as assisting customers in enhancing the health of their landscapes and our planet's eco system. Through their award winning product innovations, education activities, industry and public outreach, they are partnering with water agencies throughout the world helping to define, teach and instill world-class water management techniques to irrigation.

(Podcast recorded on December 17, 2020)

Special guests, Rick Olson, President and CEO of The Toro Company, and Angie Snavely, Director and Assistant General Counsel, Sustainability Chairperson for The Toro Company, discuss the company’s mission and current activity around sustainability and water conservation.

(Podcast recorded on December 10, 2020)

Rob De Thomas, General Manager of Hellas Construction. Hellas Construction company is the largest sports complex construction company in the US. Mr. De Thomas discusses the significant growth in synthetic turf and explains the newest technologies utilized for the installation of synthetic turf.  In addition, he discusses how they work with their clients to detail pertinent information about drainage, maintenance and the differences in synthetic turf used for soccer, baseball, football, track and etc.

(Podcast recorded on November 19, 2020)

Special guest Scott Rowan, Director of Asset Management for DMB Community Life, Inc. California and Arizona communities shares landscape and water issues that face daily scrutiny. Scott explains his work with landscape contractors to establish guidelines for how work should be performed and measured. He also comments on what he sees as the future of landscapes.

(Podcast recorded on November 12, 2020)

Featured guests Don and Dave Hendrickson, recent inductees to the Green Industry Hall of Fame, detail their 50 year history in the irrigation and agriculture industries. They describe how they launched Hendrickson Brothers Irrigation Distribution and the many state of the art irrigation products they designed such as pressure regulators, drip irrigation manifolds and flow control regulators.

(Podcast recorded on November 5, 2020)

Featured guest is Brandon Burgess, Conservation Specialist from Chino Basin Water Conservation District. Brandon discusses water conservation methods and technologies as well as their specialized education courses that are presented to both homeowners and landscape professionals at their facilities. He also speaks about the special programs they offer to perform free irrigation system site audits for their district's homeowners and commercial property owners.

(Podcast recorded on October 22, 2020)