Jennifer “Jay” PooleFor nearly five years, Mills’ botanical garden has been home to an odd-looking bit of machinery.Known as California Irrigation Management Information station 149, this setup measures solar radiation, air temperature, soil temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, and precipitation, and sends its information hourly to EBMUD. The Oakland Foothills station is part of a network of 195 like it in California, and the information they gather is regularly accessed by more than 6,000 users, including farmers, landscape engineers, park managers and weather monitoring agencies.
