City of Portland Parks
Portland, Oregon

With more than 9,400 acres of parks in the greater Portland metropolitan area, it goes without saying that Portlanders enjoy the outdoors, taking full advantage of the great climate and the array of year-round activities the area offers. Public gardens and collections, like the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park, and the city's network of parks bestow tranquillity, diversity, and natural beauty upon their daily visitors.

"Parks are important to people who live here," explains Jim Figurski, landscape architect in the Design and Construction Section of the city of Portland Parks and Recreation. "It' important for us to keep them lush and green, and at the same time apply water to them in the most efficient manner possible. Until we committed ourselves to the MAXICOM system about four years ago, we weren't accomplishing either objective very well."

Parks And Recreation Did Their Homework

With nearly 200 park and open-space areas in the city, Parks and Recreation understood the need to automate their systems. "Central control is not something we jumped into," continues Figurski. "We started our general movement toward central control about 10 years ago when we installed ISC controllers."

Figurski and David Gray, Parks and Recreation's irrigation services manager, have witnessed the City of Portland's transformation to MAXICOM central control. "For five or six years, we conducted various in-house studies to determine the appropriate application of central control and to select the best central control system for our needs," says Gray.

The city even hired Aqua Engineering out of Ft. Collins, Colorado to conduct a feasibility study of the city's park irrigation systems. Gray continues: "After considering where we were with our stand-alone ISC controllers, our requirements, the cost of upgrading, and the service records of all the major manufacturers, we selected Rain Bird and their MAXICOM system. And it was a good choice."

Climate Aids City With Central Control Decision

At the same time that central control was being evaluated by Figurski and Gray, the Portland area was experiencing serious drought conditions. "People here had never experienced an extended drought," explains Gray. They thought droughts were exclusive to the Southwest." This condition led city officials to seek innovative solutions to water conservation. The timing was perfect. The Parks and Recreation division had just the product - MAXICOM central control.

MAXICOM Becomes Household Word

The City of Portland started testing MAXICOM at a trial site in Sellwood/Riverfront Park about four years ago. A year later, Figurski was given the responsibility of irrigating Westmoreland Park. "The bids we received for irrigating the park were low enough that we had money left to install MAXICOM," explains Figurski. They installed MAXICOM Jr., which allowed them to control the single site. In less than a year, Figurski and his team had changed out that system for a full-blown MAXICOM system that allowed them to control 200 sites.

By the end of this year, the City of Portland will be using MAXICOM to manage the irrigation needs of eight city parks - totaling nearly 200 acres. Currently, the City of Portland's MAXICOM system is tied into one MAXICOM weather station, located about 10 miles east of the central control computer. This year, another weather station will come online to the west allowing for increased sensitivity to the area's weather conditions.

Communication Methods Vary At Portland Sites

When it comes to communicating within the MAXICOM system, Figurski and Gray say the simplest and most cost effective solution is to use dedicated phone lines.

Currently, Peninsula Park is the only site using cellular as its primary communication method. "In an initial meeting with the phone company we discovered that our closest phone connection to the park was several hundred yards away," said Figurski. "So we installed a cellular connection and it has worked flawlessly." A radio connection was not even considered due to the cost of such a system. Figurski estimates the City saved approximately $2,000 in overall startup costs using cellular versus radio at a single site.

At Washington Park, the home of the world famous International Rose Test Garden, link radio was used because radio transceivers were donated for the job. In addition, running hard wire would have required some extensive trenching across the park area. "By implementing the radio communication link, we were able to demonstrate the flexibility of the MAXICOM system," explains Gray.

Verbal Affirmation Points To Success

"Before (central control) some areas consistently took too much water, while others received no water," says Gray. Figurski points our that some of the MAXICOM-controlled parks used to receive hand irrigation. "It was very labor intensive, and very much hit-and-miss," he says. "But not any more."

Portland: A Jewel of the Northwest

Although some have disagreed on what to call Portland - the City of Roses, the City of Bridges, Stump Town, Rip City, or even Boston - all agree it is a city populated by friendly people and surrounded by breathtaking beauty. Located at the confluence of the Columbia and the Willamette Rivers, the Portland Metropolitan Area covers more than 5,000 square miles in Oregon and Washington and has a population of 1.6 million people.

Portland provides its residents and visitors with a myriad of activities and breathtaking vistas, all of which are easily accessible. This Northwest jewel is the gateway to many inland wonders, including majestic Mt. Hood and the Columbia River Gorge.

Economically, it is the proud home of such corporations as Nike, Tektronix, and Fred Meyer. It also ranks as one of the top cities in the country for international trade. In 1993, World Trade ranked Portland as one of America's 10 Best Cities for International Companies.

The city features 9,400 acres of parks. These parks range in size from Forest Park, the largest forested wilderness park in any U.S. city, to Mill Ends Park, the world's smallest dedicated city park. A short distance from downtown is famed Washington Park, the home of the famous International Rose Test Garden with its 400-plus varieties of roses.

The fact that some disagree over what to call Portland is nothing new to this beautiful Northwest city and its people. In fact, such friendly disagreements go all the way back to its roots. Founded in 1851, Portland was part of a 640-acre land claim owned by Asa Lovejoy and Francis Pettygrove. As the story goes, Lovejoy, a native of Massachusetts, wanted to name the site Boston. Pettygrove, on the other hand, was from Maine and wanted to name the hamlet Portland. The dispute was settled with a coin toss. Pettygrove won. So, Portland it became and Portland it remains today.