Eric Pugh and Vincent Johnson practice football plays in front of the free speech area regularly between classes. Both men said they never paused to wonder about the freshly cut and well maintained green grass they play on, until they were asked about it.

“The green grass, the green trees, well yeah,” Pugh said, “it makes me kind of proud to be here and want to work out and keep going through the day of classes.”

Johnson added, “If the grass is dead, you can’t really do anything; you don’t want to go to a school with dry grass.”

The reason for the green grass, as this reporter discovered, is due to the work done by the grounds crew, supervised by Glen Foth, the State Center Community College District’s manager of the grounds service.

Foth said that his crew has been able to keep the campus’ grass green and looking great for the students to enjoy, because of the efficient watering program.

“In 2013 we used 165 million gallons of water at Fresno City College,” Foth said. “Last year, we were at about 110 million gallons of water; my goal is to be under 90 millions gallons this year.”

Foth added that the grounds maintenance crew also uses verti-drain, a new piece of equipment which is a soil aerifier. The verti-drain helps keep the grass green.

His grounds crew uses it to aerify the athletic fields, and it allows the water to penetrate with the holes it pokes in the ground.

Foth says they are not stopping there, however, and that his office has plans to improve their water efficiency even more with a new state of the art system set to come online this upcoming year.

“We will be going into a system called the Maxicom, which is all computerized and will do things like use the weather system we have at the Clovis campus and use that information,” said Foth.

“For example, if it rains, we will automatically be able to shut everything off from the computer system on my desk.”

That same computer system currently runs most of the other college campuses in the district, including the Madera Center, Clovis Community College, Herndon Clovis Community Campus and the Oakhurst Center.

The only colleges in the district that are not operating under the Maxicom irrigation system are FCC and Reedley College, Foth said.

Foth added that the system will probably cost between $50,000 and $75,000, but that the district should recuperate that money in a couple years of savings because of the savings.

“When we went to the Maxicom system in the Clovis Campus, we saw an immediate 30 percent savings in water,” Foth said.

The college does not, however, have water restrictions in the athletic fields in the same way that residential customers do, Foth said.

“If the schools are brown, and the parks are brown, it’s not good for the safety of the kids who are playing out there in organized sports,” Foth explained. “So the city [City of Fresno]made allowances for us to water our athletic fields three days a week versus two.”

Foth said he is proud to be part involved in the maintenance of the green grass at FCC so students such as Pugh and Johnson can enjoy themselves, while still conserving water in the most efficient way possible.

“It looks beautiful, no dead grass,” Johnson said. “It makes Fresno City College a great school to come to.”