Arid Southwest Cities’ Plea: Lose the Lawn

[alp227]

LOS ANGELES — This is how officials here feel about grass these days: since 2009, the city has paid $1.4 million to homeowners willing to rip out their front lawns and plant less thirsty landscaping.

At least the lawns are still legal here. Grass front yards are banned at new developments in Las Vegas, where even the grass medians on the Strip have been replaced with synthetic turf.

In Austin, Tex., lawns are allowed; watering them, however, is not — at least not before sunset. Police units cruise through middle-class neighborhoods hunting for sprinklers running in daylight and issuing $475 fines to their owners.

Worried about dwindling water supplies, communities across the drought-stricken Southwest have begun waging war on a symbol of suburban living: the lush, green grass of front lawns.

In hopes of enticing, or forcing, residents to abandon the scent of freshly cut grass, cities in this parched region have offered homeowners ever-increasing amounts to replace their lawns with drought-resistant plants; those who keep their grass face tough watering restrictions and fines for leaky sprinklers.

These efforts are drastically reshaping the landscape, with cactuses and succulents taking over where green grass once reigned.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/us/to-save-water-parched-southwest-cities-ask-homeowners-to-lose-their-lawns.html

[Go Vols]

1. Low flow shower heads will be next.

For all.

[JDPriestly]

4. The low flow toilets are a disaster for your plumbing. Maybe that isn't the case in newer houses,

but in our old house, the reduced flow toilet and the plumbing are not a good match.

I am switching to succulents on my front lawn. I will be making that change this Fall. My succulents are in pots at this time, growing and getting roots so that they will be ready to start out in what I hope will be the "rainy season." If you can call it that.

What annoys me is the enthusiasm the City of Los Angeles has for granting new building permits in the midst of years and years of drought. We need to tell newcomers that we have neither the housing nor the jobs for them. Unless we can get more water, we are courting disaster when we make it easy for people to move to L.A.

And that is sad because we use very little energy to heat our houses in the winters. And really, the summers are not as bad here as they are in the Southeast or the Midwest, and maybe even milder than in some parts of the East Coast.

We have lots of sun and could produce a great deal of solar energy -- but we do not have water.

Considering how many pipelines have been built to transport gas and oil, you would think we could transport water to Southern California from areas in which they have a lot of water. But I don't think that will happen although it would be easier and safer than transporting gas seems to me.

[XemaSab]

8. You think they don't pipe water to LA?

[JDPriestly]

9. Yes. They do. I know that, but not nearly enough of it for all the new housing development.

And they just want to build and build and build. It is insane.

[MindPilot]

21. Not just LA. The developers do whatever they want.

Not hard to find a single-family home being cleared to make way for a six, eight or ten-unit apartment. Or 2000-unit self-contained mini-cities like this:

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Jan/25/mira-mesa-apartments-garden-communities/

All supported by an infrastructure that everybody knew was barely adequate a couple decades ago. And now they want me to give up the few dozen square feet of lawn that is one of the few remaining pleasures in my life? No thanks, take that out of someone else hide.

[Control-Z]

2. And yet, Texas repukes still deny

climate change.

[Katashi_itto]

13. Let them. This is a state that gave us Bush, Rick Perry. Eventually reality will come crashing in

on them.

[moondust]

3. I'm curious about the golf courses.

Are they being watered (for the benefit of the 1%)?

[JDPriestly]

5. In LA, I think they are.

[Divernan]

10. Golf is $49 BILLION per yr. business; 4 BILLION gals. of H2O DAILY

During the past decade, there has been an explosion in new golf courses. The
United States is now home to nearly 18,000 golf courses, more than half the
world's 35,000 golf courses, according to the Worldwatch Institute, a think
tank that monitors global environmental trends.

In the United States, golf courses cover more than 1.7 million acres and
soak up nearly 4 billion gallons of water daily, the institute estimates.
They also use pesticides and fertilizers that contribute to water pollution.

A 1994 review of death certificates for 618 golf course superintendents by
researchers at the University of Iowa's College of Medicine found an
unusually high numbers of deaths from certain cancers, including brain
cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The results were similar to other studies that have found an elevated risk
for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma among farm workers and pesticide applicators.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/golf042604.cfm

The "modern" game of golf originated in Scotland in the 1400's, Early Scottish golf courses were primarily laid out on links land, soil-covered sand dunes directly inland from beaches. This gave rise to the term "golf links", particularly applied to seaside courses and those built on naturally sandy soil inland.

Those original Scottish golfers would surely scoff at the pampered US golfers with their courses manicured, watered and chemically treated to look like some unnaturally green, Thomas Kinkade fairy tale.

On edit: And the Scots would also ridicule the ubiquitous use of golf carts. Today's golfers get minimum exercise - it's gotta be the least strenuous "sport" in the world.

[Divernan]

11. Water use stats from 10 years ago; golf course numbers have grown since then.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/797

Number of photos in the January/February issue of Coastal Living that showed coastal wildlife (seabirds, crustaceans, turtles, or other fauna): 1

Number of photos in the same issue showing golf courses: 61

Amount of water it would take, per day, to support 4.7 billion people at the UN daily minimum:
2.5 billion gallons
Amount of water used, per day, to irrigate the world’s golf courses: 2.5 billion gallons

Number of golf courses in Japan before World War II: 23
Number in operation or soon to open in 2004: 3,030

Average amount of pesticides used per acre, per year, on golf courses: 18.0 pounds
Average amount of pesticides used, per acre, per year, in agriculture: 2.7 pounds

Amount of water used by 60,000 villagers in Thailand, on average, per day: 6,500 cubic meters
Amount of water used by one golf course in Thailand, on average, per day: 6,500 cubic meters

Current area of the wetlands of the Colorado River Delta, which now receives just 0.1 percent of the river water that once flowed through it: 150,000 acres

Area that could be covered to a depth of 2 feet with water drawn from the Colorado River by the city of Las Vegas, which uses much of that allotment to water its more than 60 golf courses:150,000 acres

Sources: Photos: Coastal Living, January/February 2004; Water usage: Chris Reuther, Know Your Environment, Academy of Natural Sciences, 1999; National Golf Foundation; State of the World 2004; Japan: “Japan Golfcourses and Deforestation,” TED Case #282, 2003; Pesticides: “EcoMall: A Greener Golf Course, 2004;” Thailand: U.K. Sports Turf Research Institute; Colorado River: Environmental Defense; Las Vegas: Associated Press.
Published in World Watch Magazine, March/April 2004, Volume 17, No. 2

[Are_grits_groceries]

6. People need to be taught xeriscaping.

http://eartheasy.com/grow_xeriscape.htm

The results can be beautiful. It saves water and cuts down on use of pesticides. I would go so far as offering a tax credit or some other monetary help or those who want to. The water saved would be worth it.

[dipsydoodle]

7. If you're into such stuff then watch this when you have the time.

They use everything from reclaimed building construction blocks and old wood to create the hyper fertile low depth beds.

[a la izquierda]

12. We'll be doing this when we buy in WV

[theHandpuppet]

17. Be careful where you buy

If you plan on doing a lot of gardening/farming, be careful where you buy in WV. In many places the topsoil is very thin, very rocky. You really have to bolster the soil to get anything out of it. Beautiful state but there's a reason it's not thought of as Iowa.

[a la izquierda]

19. Thanks for the tip.

We're actually planning to buy a few acres so my husband can open a dog boarding facility. But I want to be able to do some small farming.

We also have to watch out for natural gas and coal. Ugh.

[Enthusiast]

16. I like that!

It looks nicer than a lawn anyway.

[Le Taz Hot]

14. We got rid of our back yard lawn years ago

and we're now looking to eliminate the front lawn. Paving stones, mini-rock gardens, raised-bed gardens, miniature fruit trees in containers and succulents, all on drip irrigation and a pergola for shade. I currently HATE the grass in the front yard. Too much watering (although I refuse to water it so it's brown as hell right now) and mowing every week? Screw that. Lawns are a terrible waste of water and land.

[hobbit709]

15. What grows in my yard is what has survived TX weather.

I don't water it at all.

[theHandpuppet]

18. Sounds like you have a natural yard

It amazes me how many people put chemical fertilizers and weed killers in their lawns because not having a lawn that looks like a putting green terrifies them.

[sufrommich]

20. Most of these restrictions should have been in place

decades ago.And to the parents who are complaining that their kids "deserve" grass lawns to play on no matter what the cost,move out of the desert or live without grass.

[AverageJoe90]

22. There could be a midway solution for those that just HAVE to have grass.....

....why not just get artificial grass? You don't need to water it and it's not that bad for the environment.....