Re: The value of water

   From: K1MIZE@aol.com
   Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 09:50:54 EST

   It is hard to imagine a lawn or anything that one would recognize as a
   "garden" surviving in most of California without supplemental irrigation on
   a regular basis, at least in summer.  We often have 6 months or more
   without any rain.  

In San Diego, this might be true (lawns get pretty brown there in the
summer), or in the Central Valley, but here in Oakland I never water my
lawn (I'm inland enough to miss much of the famous SF fog).  Even during
last year's super hot low-cloud/low-fog summer that messed up some of my
other plants.  My lawn was green all summer and is green now.  Mind you, we
are not talking lush picture-perfect green.  And the front lawn
(St. Augustine and Bermuda mostly) which gets no shade is great to play on
but not for lying on.  The back lawn is other grasses and gets a reasonable
amount of shade and you can roll around on it.

   Water use is a thorny subject here.  Water for
   agriculture is almost limitless, thanks to state and Federal subsidies and
   water projects, but water for use by people is restricted.  I find it hard
   to feel bad about watering my little lawn and garden, when one can drive
   down I-5 in the summer and see the Rain-Bird sprinklers going on tens of
   thousands of acres of cotton in 100+ (F) temperatures, or go to the
   Imperial Valley in summer, one of the driest desert regions in the world,
   with temps in the 120F range, and see enormous fields of alfalfa being
   flood-irrigated.  Not that I'm bitter...

Oh I agree.  I think all that water waste is sick.  Have you seen the PBS
mini-series on water in the west?  All about how the dams got built, the
politics of water usage, why the California ecomony is dependent on
high-water crops in a desert, and the ecological damage of it all.  

The worst part was seeing what happened to the communities at the end of
the Colorado River (our primary source of water in Southern Calif and other
states).  Villages that relied entirely on fishing were now 40 miles from
water.  The Colorado no longer runs to the sea.  But because these were
Mexicans and not Americans, US water officials had no qualms about stealing
their water (to prevent its being "wasted" of course).

But I still think residental water should have reasonable limits.  There
are 2 cottages across the street from me built on a slight incline.  They
each have lawns around 10x10'.  The back of the plot is the house (no
entry).  The sides are hedges surrounded by fence.  The front is a fence.
Even if there was an entry the lawn is on a hill and too small to do
anything with.  Yet the gardeners the manager hires dutifly lift a mower
over the fence every couple of weeks and the automatic sprinklers go on
daily in summer.  Why?  Why not plant some nice drought-tolerant flowering
shrubs and be done with it?  What's the point?

Yeah, I'm bitter too...I grew up in San Diego and water has always been a
huge issue.  

Cyndi

_______________________________________________________________________________
Oakland, California            Zone 9 USDA; Zone 16 Sunset Western Garden Guide
Chemically sensitive/disabled - Organic Gardening only by choice and neccessity
_______________________________________________________________________________
"There's nothing wrong with me.  Maybe there's                     Cyndi Norman
something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG)           cyndi@consultclarity.com
                                                 http://www.consultclarity.com/
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