California Cities Considering Alternatives to Grass

Cookie Smith won a home beautification award from the city of Garden Grove, California, for her lush, green lawn. Smith was especially proud of the reward considering that her lawn – which set her back an incredible $10,000 – was artificial, and the city couldn’t even tell. In fact, Garden Grove has a ban on artificial turf.

Ironically, Garden Grove – and many other areas of California – is under a water conservation order, yet they still require homeowners to keep their lawns alive. Smith’s neighbor was shocked when he complied with the order to conserve water and was hit with a $50 fine when his grass withered and turned brown.

From the Ventura County Star:

“It’s kind of like saying ‘We want you to look like Brooke Shields, but we don’t want you to use any makeup,’” Smith said.

Now some cities are reconsidering their lawn laws and exploring alternatives to homes with perfect rectangles of green.

The state’s ever-growing population and the threat of a prolonged drought could kill the concept of the traditional lawn in California, where some communities conduct patrols looking for signs that homeowners are lavishing too much water on their lawns or letting it dribble down driveways.

Officials estimate that up to 70 percent of a family’s water bill is spent on landscaping.

Still, many will be reluctant to abandon lawns entirely. Thick carpets of grass have defined the landscape of suburban America for more than a century, and a healthy lawn in this semiarid climate is a status symbol.

Okay, this is ridiculous. California city councils, what the hell are you thinking? How irresponsible is it to waste precious, scarce water resources on a lawn that does absolutely nothing but sit there and look pretty? Lawns aren’t even as attractive as native gardens can be. They don’t provide food. They don’t provide a welcoming habitat for wildlife. Californians complain about the water restrictions and then turn around and waste thousands of gallons of water on this bourgeoisie ‘status symbol’.

Sorry if I sound like your mother telling you to clean your plate, but there are people in Africa who don’t have a drop of clean, fresh water to drink. This is the sort of thing that makes people across the world view America as a land of selfish, narcissistic idiots.

And people, artificial turf is NOT THE ANSWER. For one, it’s often toxic. It’s made from petroleum. It heats up and kills all of the beneficial organisms in the soil below, essentially rendering the land barren. It can harbor germs. And when your neighbor’s dog drops a deuce on it, that pile isn’t going to decompose and disappear into the earth. It’s just going to sit there until you clean it up. Have fun with that.

Californians and residents of other parched areas of America are going to have to part with their lawns eventually, like it or not. More water isn’t going to magically appear to meet the needs of all of these people plus the millions more that will move there in the next couple of decades, and keep their stupid lawns green.

Link [Ventura County Star]

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