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California Begins To Rip Up Lawns Because "The Whole Damn State [Is] Out Of Water"
In early May, California’s water regulators backed a series of emergency measures proposed in an Executive Order issued by Governor Jerry Brown. The extraordinary conservation effort comes amid a historic drought, that some climatologists say will reach “Dust Bowl” proportions before all is said and done.
Recapping, the order called for a 25% reduction in overall water usage beginning on June 1 — so, last Monday. The state reduced its consumption by 13.5% in April (compared to 2013), suggesting residents will need to redouble their efforts if Brown’s targets are to prove realistic. While some communities have attempted to cast conservation as the “cool” thing to do, other localities say that in the absence of significant financial resources, the cuts simply aren’t feasible. AP has more:
April's best conservers included Santa Rosa, a city of 170,000 people north of San Francisco, which reported a 32 percent drop in April compared to the same month in 2013. The city offered a host of programs to achieve savings such as paying residents to reduce 52 football fields' worth of lawn and giving away 50,000 low-flush toilets since 2007.
Saved water "is the cheapest water you can find," said David Guhin, water director for Santa Rosa. "It's gotten to where lawns are uncool."
Cool or no, many communities are still falling far short.
"Fifty-thousand toilets? Really? We don't have that kind of money," said Alan Tandy, city manager of Bakersfield, where water use increased by 1 percent in the latest state tally.
If Tandy thinks he doesn’t have money to throw ‘down the toilet’ (so to speak) now, things could get materially worse if Bakersfield (which, as a side note, has a deal with Chevron to distribute water generated from fracking to local farmers) is unable to hit state-mandated targets. Here’s AP again:
Starting this month, each community has a mandatory water reduction target, with some ordered to cut back as much as 36 percent.
Water districts missing their targets face potential fines of up to $10,000 a day once June numbers are in, although a far more likely outcome will be state-ordered changes in local regulations, like toughening limits on lawn-watering.
Of course one way to ensure that Californians cut back on watering their lawns is to simply encourage households to remove the grass altogether and replace it with something that needs far less water — like rocks.
As The Guardian reports, grass has no real place in California anyway and is only present because Californians have never had to live without it and because the state's citizens exhibit a peculiar nostalgia for the time they spent as British monarchs.
Via The Guardian:
There is pressure to take things one step further and turn to lawns. More precisely, to the ripping out of them.
In his executive order, Brown called for the replacement of 50m sq ft of lawns with “drought-tolerant landscapes”, a goal to be achieved with the help of local subsidies and partial funding from the state’s water department.
“Over 50% of household water usage is outdoors,” said Stephanie Pincetl, a professor and director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at University of California, Los Angeles.
California’s love for lawns is wholly unsuited to the state’s dry climate, Pincetl said, describing the attachment as an “inherited historic aesthetic” that comes straight out of the British Empire.
“Turf serves no functional purpose other than it looks good,” said Bob Muir of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWDSC), which provides water to nearly 19 million Californians.
The MWDSC recently voted to increase its conservation programme to a whopping $450m over two years, with money taking the form of rebates on turf removal operations and incentives on efficient faucets.
Californians are taking the leap by the tens of thousands. Almost one year into that two-year period, Muir said, half of the money already spent (around $44m out of $88m) has been allocated to residents and businesses undertaking turf removal.
Replacing one's lawn with rocks and cacti has become so popular that it's spawned a growth industry.
Turf Terminators, a Los Angeles-based company created last July, has ripped up 5,000 lawns in less than a year, according to its head of business development, Andrew Farrell. The company started with three employees. It now has 565 full-timers.
But even with help from a turf-terminating team from design to completion, ripping up your lawn is expensive.
In Los Angeles, if you combine two separate subsidies from the city ($1.75 per sq ft), and the MWDSC ($2 per sq ft), you will most likely still have to put in some cash of your own.
According to Farrell, the average turf-removal job costs between $5 and $8 per sq ft. This means someone on a budget with a modest front yard of 400 sq ft would still have to pay $500 out of their own pocket for a $2,000 operation, if they went for one of the cheaper options.
If they wanted to go for something slightly more elaborate, the same resident would have to put in $1,700 of their own money for a $3,200 operation.
In fact, Terf Terminators advertises the fact that you may be able to have your lawn dug up for free, by simply signing over your "water rebate" (taxpayer-funded grass removal subsidy) to the company. Here's how it works (from the official Terf Terminators website):
Here’s how Turf Terminators can afford to offer its services for free:
- Turf Terminators has consulted regional, municipal, and local water authorities, including utilities and state agencies to understand various turf removal rebate programs offered in Southern California.
- Turf Terminators utilizes water rebates from state water authorities that are offered per square foot of turf that is removed and replaced.
- Customers assign their rights to state-offered water rebates over to Turf Terminators.
- Turf Terminators’ contractors transform customers’ lawns and campuses while abiding by certain landscape requirements dictated by state, municipal and local authorities.
- Turf Terminators’ in-house laborers, relationships with local nurseries and suppliers and access to wholesale prices allow it to provide landscaping services at a low cost.
- Government water rebates cover the cost of Turf Terminators’ services, which it provides WITHOUT CHARGING ITS CUSTOMERS ANYTHING.
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And while Turf Terminators and its nearly 600 new full-time employees (including, we assume, the guy in the raindrop suit shown above) tear up lawns, and while residents skimp on showers, the state's lawmakers are doing what lawmakers in the US do best: nothing.
Via LA Times:
Farrmers have watched fields turn fallow. Residents have skipped showers and ripped up lawns. But four years into California's epic drought, Congress is status quo: gridlocked.
The state's splintered congressional delegation — despite its size and influence — has been stymied by fundamental disagreements over the causes of the drought and the role of the federal government in mitigating its consequences.
If anything, recent fights have only hardened positions, with both sides questioning each other's motives.
Ultimately, the state now hopes Senator Dianne Feinstein can help to break the stalemate. We'll leave you with the following, from Congressman Devin Nunes:
"If they don't do something soon they're going to get the whole damn state out of water."
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don't forget to share a pee while you are in the shower. people who know, go with the flow.
600 workers, performing one time services of ripping out lawns and replacing them with rocks. 260,000 permanent, lawn mowing, illegal, wetbacks out of work. 70% of the lawn sprinkler companies go belly up, Hoooorah.
BULLSHIT BULLSHIT AND MORE BULLSHIT!!!
This drought has been man-made from day one, created by politicians themselves.
Years ago, 300 BILLION gallons of water were diverted away from inland areas to the Pacific in order to supposedly "save a 3-inch fish called the delta smelt." No, the intent was never to create an artificial crisis used to control people (hegelian dialectic, anyone?), it was all about SAVING THE FISH!
Don't expect your news media to mention this one, ever.
http://naturalresources.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=5921
An additional benefit from replacing lawns with brown mulch is free fertilizer, as all the cats of the neighborhood will use your parcel as their litter box!
Dead lawns and their root systems are fungus and fire hazards. Only way to mitigate that is to rip out. Not good for the mudslides tho, but dead roots are not much better..
The state's splintered congressional delegation — despite its size and influence — has been stymied by fundamental disagreements over the causes of the drought.
Clearly these are typical Americans who can not even exercise enough intelligence to look into, examine the evidence and conclude what is causing the drought in California. Most basically intelligent adults can do this simple thing. Yet not the typical American. For them, the first question to ask about the drought is "What is my political belief?" Then they must square their politics with the drought. If they are anti science, then they ignore climate or past climate evidence. If they are libertarian, they must blame government, no matter what caused a lack of rain fall. If they are Republican or Democrat, they must ask what their top contributors want out of the drought measures"
In short, facts mean nothing. They are playing fucking politics with weather, climate and water. Unaware that they have no control, climate doesn't give a fuck about politics or congressional campaign contributions. The cliamte is right now set up by the laws of physics to deprive California of rain, nothing political can change it! If El Nino forms properly, in the right areas to bring rain, then it will piss down rain, if it is an El Nino with a more Mid Pacific component, then California goes dry another year. I fail to see the political side of that.
The business model of California agriculture is simple. Don't pay your workers, and don't pay for water.
Let what remains of California's white working class keep their lawns. Make California agribusiness pay a fair price for water and make the spoiled trophy wives of the wealthy in all 50 states pay something closer to what it actually costs to make their stupid organic almond milk and provide them with fresh raspberries in December.
Why the fuck, with maturing solar technology and millions of square miles of sun-baked ocean, are we still having this conversation??
With the production of soylent green, water can be freed up on a very large scale.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/ny-catholic-conference-opposes-chemical-digestion-of-human-remains/
the california drougt simply ISNT a problem .
just let california go dry. people will adapt. move north, change living patterns.
eventually the government will be ignored as it always is.
Nice day for a mow!
I live in Michigan. My house is 100 years old and we sit on a well. The city went to Detroit city water a while ago, but my city will not split the meter for drinkable water vs irrigation water.
So, I wanted to tap the well to use that for irrigation, but the city said no. So now, I either pay $600 for a 3-month water bill to have nice grass or I let it turn brown.
None of us actually own our homes. Try not paying property taxes for 6 months and see what happens. It's such a complete scam.
The problem is too many people - and that is the one thing that won't ever be mentioned by the media.
Lived in California for two years. Nothing like seeing the automatic sprinklers kick in - while it was raining!
When the little people rise up, think of all the rocks they will have to throw.
I have some blades of grass growing between the clover and weeds. I laugh at the Scotts and Chemlawn guys that want to hook my soil on chemicals to "grow more grass". You don't want to see what happens when the treatments stop. Sterile soil. What I have is all green to me, just keep it mowed.
It is very simple to solve CA's water problems. Allow municipal suppliers to set their own prices and secure their own supplies. If you raise the price, people will curtail their usage. Water tankers will start showing up in LA.
"The two agencies have known for years that Apodaca was culpable in the pay-to-play scheme with Ron and Tom Calderon but they turned a blind eye.
The agencies allowed Apodaca to maintain his lifestyle, allowed him to maintain membership in several water related committees, and looked the other way when he campaigned for office at Central Basin where he represents the cities of La Habra Heights, La Mirada, Norwalk, Santa Fe Springs, Whittier and South Whittier.
Apodaca also serves as one of the District’s representatives to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
“
http://www.loscerritosnews.net/2015/06/05/exclusive-central-basin-water-...
Its a strange irony that America shuns state funded health care, because it sees it as "socialist" , leaving millions of its citizens without any sort of decent medical care, yet somehow thinks massive state subsidies for basically installing decent plumbing and garden landscaping is somehow fitting for a capitalist championing nation. They have the NSA watching every email or text the average American sends, at billions of dollars wasted per year, yet can't sort out simple solutions to this regularly recurring drought. Just shows how the US really has lost its way.
Storm the Bastille! Seize the water!
rip up all the lawns you want - 80% of the water is use for agriculture... get ready to pay 20 bucks for a head of lettuce?
God's way of giving the "exceptional people" the finger.
The only thing more dangerous than a hungry man is a thirsty man.
Sorry ZeroHedge ...
I am too busy having tea and scones on the lawn.
Ask the butler if he knows anything about it.
There are two types of people: Those who wish to be left alone, and those who can't leave anyone alone.
I happen to like lawns. I find them beautiful. It is my money and my property, and quite frankly none of your business.
We have this romantic notion that we are a country of immigrants, but that is a vestigial notion from a time long ago when the country was virtually empty. That time has come and gone. We are now a country overflowing with people. Many of these new immigrants are being located in the Southwestern desert where there is a severe shortage of water. The population of the Southwest (CA, AZ, NV) has increased 172% since 1960 compared to 29.0% for the Midwest and 29.6% for the Northeast Megalopolis. The Southwest is not the Midwest or the Northeast where populations are relatively stable and there is plenty of water. In the Southwest we get much of our water from the Colorado River which feeds Lake Meade. In 2011 Lake Meade reached its lowest level on record. Overpopulation is sucking it dry. Food prices are rising, and are predicted to skyrocket even further due to California’s Central and Imperial Valleys being short of water. The unemployment rate in El Centro, California is 21.6%, second only to nearby Yuma, Arizona at 23.8%. This tragic condition exists because there is a glut of imported workers, and the once fertile fields are being left fallow due to a lack of water. It is environmental and economic suicide to continue to have the highest legal and illegal immigration in the world.
Public policy pontificators need to realize that the environmental conditions that exist in the Midwest or Northeast Megalopolis DO NOT exist in the Southwest. Without truly massive public works projects, reaching into Oregon's Columbia River Basin (the most voluminous river west of the Rockies by a factor of ten), we simply do not have enough water to support more imported people. It is a matter of simple physics–more people use more water.
The primary job of politicians is to keep the supply of clean water ahead of population growth, even thru a 500 year drought. The liberal Democratic politicians in California failed to do this. Every political trip toward the left always ends the same way: With a rising gap between rich and poor, and shortages.
There are two types of people: Those who wish to be left alone, and those who can't leave anyone alone.
I happen to like lawns. I find them beautiful. It is my money and my property, and quite frankly none of your business.
We have this romantic notion that we are a country of immigrants, but that is a vestigial notion from a time long ago when the country was virtually empty. That time has come and gone. We are now a country overflowing with people. Many of these new immigrants are being located in the Southwestern desert where there is a severe shortage of water. The population of the Southwest (CA, AZ, NV) has increased 172% since 1960 compared to 29.0% for the Midwest and 29.6% for the Northeast Megalopolis. The Southwest is not the Midwest or the Northeast where populations are relatively stable and there is plenty of water. In the Southwest we get much of our water from the Colorado River which feeds Lake Meade. In 2011 Lake Meade reached its lowest level on record. Overpopulation is sucking it dry. Food prices are rising, and are predicted to skyrocket even further due to California’s Central and Imperial Valleys being short of water. The unemployment rate in El Centro, California is 21.6%, second only to nearby Yuma, Arizona at 23.8%. This tragic condition exists because there is a glut of imported workers, and the once fertile fields are being left fallow due to a lack of water. It is environmental and economic suicide to continue to have the highest legal and illegal immigration in the world.
Public policy pontificators need to realize that the environmental conditions that exist in the Midwest or Northeast Megalopolis DO NOT exist in the Southwest. Without truly massive public works projects, reaching into Oregon's Columbia River Basin (the most voluminous river west of the Rockies by a factor of ten), we simply do not have enough water to support more imported people. It is a matter of simple physics–more people use more water.
The primary job of politicians is to keep the supply of clean water ahead of population growth, even thru a 500 year drought. The liberal Democratic politicians in California failed to do this. Every political trip toward the left always ends the same way: With a rising gap between rich and poor, and shortages.