Fountain Valley, CA (May 25, 2018) – The Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC) and the Wyland Foundation are pleased to announce that the City of Westminster has been named the 2018 winner of a water-wise pocket park for their outstanding participation in the 7th annual Wyland National Mayor’s Challenge for Water Conservation. The park will serve as a valuable resource and reminder to OC businesses and residents that with the right tools, irrigation, and plants, water-efficient landscaping is possible and can be beautiful as well as functional.
“We applaud the City of Westminster for their tireless efforts to educate community members about the value of water,” says MWDOC Board President Brett Barbre. “Being good stewards of our water resources is a privilege we all share.”
Each year, cities across the United States compete in the Wyland National Mayor’s Challenge for Water Conservation. This notable, month-long campaign promotes the long term sustainability benefits of using natural resources more efficiently and has mayors nationwide rallying their citizens to complete a series of online pledges to be more thoughtful of their water use. For the second consecutive year, as an added incentive, MWDOC has partnered with the Wyland Foundation to present a breakaway challenge for Orange County citizens. Collectively, OC cities who participated in the 2018 Challenge secured close to 21,000 pledges. That is an increase of more than 5,000 pledges since the introduction of the breakaway competition in 2017.
This year, the City of Westminster alone collected over 9,500 pledges from community members committing to reduce the city’s water use by 38.2 million gallons from now until next April, when the Challenge begins again. This month long community outreach effort has earned the city the title of most water wise city in the nation for their population category. This is the second consecutive year that an OC city has won the national title.
MWDOC and the Wyland Foundation wish to congratulate and thank all Orange County citizens who participated in this year’s Challenge. The two organizations also would like to recognize the cities of Laguna Beach and Irvine for taking second and third place in the OC competition respectively. This outstanding partnership supports MWDOC’s mission to “…promote water use efficiency for all of Orange County.”