For a good part of the Southwest, where rainfall is less than most areas of the United States and getting even less frequent, decorative landscaping, of necessity, requires constant irrigation. While botanists are generating new strains of grass that can subsist on vastly less water, large, beautiful lawns remain an American standard even in the West. It’s that green stuff behind the white picket fence in that oft-pictured “average American house.” It’s also that expansive lawn that graces more than one millionaire’s home (homes?). They need lots of precious water… a huge substitute for rain that allows other sections of the country to permit such lavish lawns.
Even where there have been fines in the arid West for using too much water during periods of drought or aridification, those with serious money prefer to pay those fines rather than threaten their lawns with permanent extinction. A few municipalities have resorted to flow-restrictors for the wealthy scofflaws… but fighting and punishing the rich often run counter to politicians’ seeking campaign contributions. Nevertheless, reality remains that climate change requires massive cutbacks in water usage. And moving water from wet to dry is truly expensive: water weighs a lot… so pumping uphill along vast channels is usually commercially too costly (ask California with its aqueduct system).
We’ve watched as cities all around the world have simply run out of water or are about to run out of water. Cape Town, Cairo, Beijing, Sao Paulo, Phoenix, El Paso, Los Angeles, Mendocino, etc. Where ordinary citizens lose the ability to bathe, wash clothes and dishes and have access to drinking water, that rich folks can fund politicians just might hit a brick wall. For coastal communities, desalination is an expensive alternative that takes years to implement – not to mention dealing with the obvious environmental toxicity (see my recent A-Salt with Intense blog) – and does not address immediate needs. For inland communities, desal is not even an option.
Facing these realities, Los Angeles Times correspondent Ian James (on November 18th) writes: “With the federal government calling for major cuts in water use to address the historic shortage on the Colorado River, the leaders of 30 agencies that supply cities from the Rocky Mountains to Southern California have signed an agreement committing to boost conservation, in part by pledging to target the removal of one especially thirsty mainstay of suburban landscapes: decorative grass.
“The water agencies, which supply Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Santa Monica, Burbank, San Diego and other cities, have committed to a nonbinding list of actions, including creating a program to remove 30% of ‘nonfunctional’ grass and replace it with ‘drought- and climate-resilient landscaping, while maintaining vital urban landscapes and tree canopies.’.. The pledge could strengthen efforts across the Southwest to remove grass along roadsides and medians and in enclaves subject to homeowners associations, apartment complexes, businesses and other properties.
“The 30 urban water suppliers also agreed in their memorandum of understanding to expand programs to improve water efficiency indoors and outdoors; increase wastewater recycling and reuse where it’s feasible; and implement various ‘best practices’ for conservation, such as offering rebates to customers who remove grass, adopting rate structures that incentivize saving, and establishing mandatory schedules for outdoor watering, among other things.
“While urban water suppliers have already been working toward conservation goals, the agreement represents a broad-based effort by agencies throughout the Colorado River Basin that are ‘coming forward together and really doubling down on those commitments in light of the crisis that we’re facing,’ said Liz Crosson, chief sustainability officer for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.”
Infrastructure upgrades are need to address old leaky pipes that waste billions of gallons of water every year. Capturing rainwater has to move from being a “really good idea” to “mandatory.” We actually have to reverse some structural solutions of yesteryear that are working against current water realities. Some of the earlier infrastructure in the Southwest, for example, resulted from a very different weather pattern almost a century ago. In one such instance, severe flooding plagued Southern California in the 1930s, just as urbanization was expanding.
The flood of March 1938 (pictured above) inundated parts of Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties with water due to storms that pounded the area from Sunday Feb. 27th to Friday March 4th. The impact was so severe that new drainage channels were quickly constructed. The ”lovely” Los Angeles River soon was expanded into a massive concrete lined waterway, into which drains across the city were directed. Oh, the concrete that was used was extra-smooth to move water out to see as quickly as possible, making the current priority of retaining and storing that water that much more difficult.
Sprinkler and surface irrigation are the least efficient and most prevalent forms of agricultural water use. According to the Department of California Water Resources, 80% of that state’s water goes to farming. Clearly, we need to shift to more targeted irrigation techniques and perhaps replace crops that require excessive water in these arid regions. In the non-agricultural arena, private swimming pools and decorative lawns also appear to abuse the system, along with archaic water rights allocations made a century ago. But slowly, too slowly, all that is changing:
“Last year, the Nevada Legislature passed a law that, starting in 2027, bans watering of nonfunctional grass… In May, California’s State Water Resources Control Board adopted drought rules that similarly outlaw watering of nonfunctional grass… And in October, the Metropolitan Water District’s board passed a resolution recommending that cities and water agencies throughout Southern California pass ordinances permanently prohibiting nonfunctional turf at businesses, public properties and homeowners associations.
“These measures don’t affect lawns at people’s homes, but many cities have also been trying to encourage homeowners to take out grass by offering rebates for each square foot converted to low-water-use plants. [But some municipalities are focusing on homeowners too.] The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power recently increased its lawn-removal rebate from $3 to $5 per square foot… In the Las Vegas area, more than 5 million square feet of grass has been removed and converted to desert landscaping this year, according to the Southern Nevada Water Agency.
“Public officials who set water policies throughout the Colorado River watershed are under growing pressure to find ways to rapidly reduce water use, in cities as well as farming areas… The river has long been overallocated, and its flows have shrunk dramatically during a 23-year megadrought that is being amplified by humanity’s heating of the planet. Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the nation’s two largest reservoirs, now sit nearly three-fourths empty.” LA Times. There still remain a notion within too many residents in these communities that suggests “they’ll find a way, so we don’t have to change that much.” Maybe not.
I’m Peter Dekom, and state and municipal regulations simply need to accelerate before people go to turn on their water tap… and nothing comes out.
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