Aqua-Mist Irrigation is proud of our association with the NY Football Giants. During 2009, we completed installation of the irrigation system at their brand-spanking new, state-of-the-art training facility in East Rutherford, NJ.
The standards of the NFL are uncompromising when it comes to the quality of turfgrass on which their teams practice and play. The NY Giants Timex Performance Center has a RainBird Site Control computer managed decoder system which schedules and monitors the irrigation system from Grounds Manager Rob Davis’ offices.
The infamous winds of Giants Stadium, which is located in the middle of the New Jersey Meadowlands, posed a design challenge for the operation of the sprinkler heads on their natural grass practice fields. Aqua-Mist chose the RainBird 7005 large turf rotary sprinkler because of its Rain Curtain water distribution pattern.
The Complex includes offices for Giants management and staff, three natural grass fields, one indoor and one outdoor synthetic turf field. Flow monitoring and master valve controls were added to the quick coupler mainline which rings all fields. All of these components are linked and controlled by the central computer located in the grounds office.
The toughest part of designing an irrigation system for the brand new Atlantic Health Jets Training Center in Florham Park, NJ was a 200 year-old oak tree in the middle of the 3 grass practice fields. The tree became known as “Woody’s Tree”, because owner Woody Johnson refused to allow the mighty tree to be destroyed. In addition, Grounds Director Blake Hoerr insisted that no sprinkler heads be on the 3 natural grass practice fields between the hash marks. We chose a RainBird Site Control computer managed decoder system which schedules and monitors the irrigation system from the Grounds Director's offices.
Each of the 3 fields operates independently of the others as do the “special area” stations that water under “Woody’s Tree”.
Customized programs can run any number of station combinations with the click of a mouse, and maintenance schedules can be run on any field when not in use. Fertilizer applications between the hash marks, syringing during hot weather, and sod replacement irrigating schedules are all examples of the flexibility of the Site Control software.
Precision application of irrigation water goes even further, ensuring the Jets’ turfgrass will be as green as their logo!
When Toys “R” Us purchased a sprawling 200-plus acre site in Wayne, NJ to serve as their new World Headquarters, they inherited a 1960s irrigation system that was less technologically advanced than many of today’s children’s toys. The original system had only one controller location for the entire site, and it was as confusing as a Rubik’s Cube. The system was pieced together using many different manufacturers’ products. The wrong heads were installed with the wrong types of nozzles. The heads weren’t covering the required areas. Water waste was rampant.
The company undertook a major landscaping renovation, including a totally new irrigation system. The project installation contractor—Hackensack, NJ-based Aqua-Mist Irrigation Inc.—chose a complete Hunter solution, including the new IMMS™ Central Control Irrigation Management and Monitoring System and (1,200) I-20 Ultra Rotary Sprinklers.
In 2003, the maintenance staff of the National Park service on Liberty Island decided that it was time to upgrade their irrigation control system. There were a number of isolated, stand-alone controllers on site, and coordinating the timing of irrigation schedules had grown increasingly difficult. The number of visitors to the park had increased significantly in the wake of 9/11, and there were also increased security demands because of the high-profile nature of this national monument. In addition, the old conventional wiring system from controller to valve had begun to fail. Maintaining the satisfactory operation of the system had become a burdensome task.
Aqua-Mist was called in as a consulting subcontractor. We were able to centralize the entire irrigation scheduling system by using the RainBird MDC decoder system, which was linked to the Horticulturist’s office computer. We established a continuous two wire path to all the irrigation solenoid valves in the field, eliminating dozens of deteriorating wires and multiple field controllers. Scheduling was then coordinated for all stations from the same location.
Opened for business on May 22, 2009, the new Sands Casino is an indication of changing times for the Lehigh Valley region in eastern Pennsylvania. Once the source of livelihood for tens of thousands of workers in the steel industry, the furnaces and factory doors of the Bethlehem steel mill had been closed for decades. An ambitious project to utilize the existing structures as the skeleton of the new hotel/casino complex has kept alive the memory of the once thriving industry of the area. The huge crane which now supports the Sands logo was once the workhorse of the steel making process, unloading railroad cars full of ore.
The landscape planting plan for the casino had to deal with several challenges. Soil had to be imported to provide a rooting medium because of the prevalence of rock on site. Drainage of storm water was accomplished by a network of bio-swales which help infiltrate excess water back into the ground, not into storm sewers. The focal point of the site was to be the structure itself, not the landscape design. A natural look for the plantings was created by the use of native shrubs and trees, with a complement of decorative grasses, and a few flower planting boxes at the front entrance. There is no turfgrass at this site. The irrigation system needed to be capable of delivering the extra water needed for establishment of new plantings without waste and runoff. Once established, the irrigation maintenance schedules would need to be drastically reduced. The Hunter ACC system was our choice for the controller, because of its user-friendly programming interface. It is also powerful enough to utilize a 2-wire decoder wiring path, which allowed us to make additions on the fly during construction due to changes in the landscape plan.
Security, technology, and communications - 3 challenges we had to meet in order to install the new irrigation system at Newark Liberty International Airport. Personnel screenings and limited access to work areas were part of our daily operations. In order to establish radio communication from the RainBird Maxicom irrigation software computer to the field-based satellites throughout the site, it was necessary to obtain an FCC license. Radio signals had to cross runways, the NJ turnpike and meet the criteria of non-interference with normal airport operations.
The ET (evapo-transpiration) based weather station monitors actual on-site rainfall, wind speed/direction, temperature, humidity and solar radiation. It transfers all collected data to the computer and creates a watering schedule for each area, based on plant species and soil type. All shrubbery beds are irrigated utilizing low-volume, underground drip tubing. This method delivers water directly to the plant roots, eliminating waste due to overspray and evaporation. Because of the wide-open nature of the site, wind is always an issue - even for irrigation. However, the drip system also effectively eliminated any consideration of distortion of water dispersal patterns which are a consideration with all conventional sprinkler irrigation systems. Liberty International Airport is truly a state-of-the-art installation in one of the country's busiest and highest profile facilities.
Other Notable Projects::
- West Point Military Academy
- Hudson Bergen Light Transit Rail- Hoboken and North Bergen Stations
- The Crossings at Jefferson Park- Barclays Village
- Donald Payne Vo-Tech - Newark
- Frank Sinatra Park – Hoboken
- Yogi Berra Stadium – Montclair University
- South Mountain Recreation Complex ( Essex County)