It Doesn’t Matter How
Much You Water Your Lawn
By Paul H. Betancourt
Copyright October
2015
OK, now that I have your attention let’s talk about what is
really going on.
The enviros have us at each other’s throats over a few
hundred gallons of water a day to water our yards. Let your lawn turn “gold.” No, it’s brown and
it’s dead.
What gets lost in the shuffle is the water we consume in our
food. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)says we each consume
800 gallons per day in our food. So, a family of four letting their yard die to
save 200 gallons of water is consuming 3200 gallons of water per day in their
food. We are fighting over the wrong stuff.
Another way
to look at this is the World Wildlife Federation calculates it takes one liter
of water to produce one calorie of food.
Do the math your self. Calculate how many calories you ate today and you
know how much water it took to produce your food. (Granted I am not the only
one who needs to go on a diet. But, there is still a basic need to feed
people.)
In fact,
there are numerous reports indicating we will need to increase food production
by 70% by 2050. Do you really think we are going to do that with rain fed
agriculture? Do you really think people really care about the fine points of
environmental policy when they are hungry? We forget as recently as 2008 there
were global food riots when wheat prices spiked.
Please don’t get me wrong. I agree with the Pope that we
have a divine mandate going back to Genesis to be caretakers of this world.
Our environmental friends preach conservation. That’s good.
Waste is never good. As a farmer I am careful with each drop of water we use.
Even in non-drought years we have never had ‘extra’ water. BUT, there are not
enough low flow toilets to solve this problem. We have to increase supply. Unless a lot of people are willing to check
out we have to increase our water supply.
Last Spring I flew back from a sustainability conference in
Portland. As we landed in LA we flew over the LA River. I had never seen that
from the air. It is over fifty miles long and paved from end to end. Not a drop
of groundwater recharge. What happened to the ‘reuse and recycle’ portions of
‘Reduce, Recycle and Reuse? Why aren’t we recycling the water we use?
If you poll
the fine people if California they all say they care for the environment. But,
every time the issue of recycling water comes up the voters turn it down. Why?
Are we scared of drinking pee? Don’t you realize we are all drinking recycled
dinosaur pee? [Maybe we don’t’ trust the government to safely recycle water.
Ahh, now you may be on to something.]
My left leaning friends ask- how can you say our drought is
not about the lack of rainfall. That is a fair question. Take a look at water
storage at Shasta, the water level is higher than previous droughts like
1977-78 and 1986-93. The facts are that we have a population of 38 million
people and a water system built for 19 million. There is no question that we
are using more of our developed water for environmental uses than ever before.
Recently the San Diego Union reported only 20% of the water
from an El Nino winter will be caught and stored. Are you kidding me? They have
just spent two years turning off all the water in California. We have a wet
winter on the way and they are going to let 80% run out into the ocean?
If they truly believe in climate
change then they should be leading the charge to build more water storage.
Their own logic says there will be less snow and more rain. In the past
precipitation was ‘stored’ in the form of snow pack. Doesn’t their logic
dictate we should build more storage to catch the rainfall?
There is a difference
between solving problems and ‘just doing something.’ After each natural
disaster or tragic mass shooting people run around saying we ‘must do
something.’ No, we must solve the problem. There is a world of difference
between ‘just doing something’ and solving a problem. It may take longer
because we have to dig out the real roots of the problem. It may not be as
popular because you can’t fit the slogan on a t shirt or bumper sticker. Bet,
it is a lot more effective in the long run.
Summary- If the
government wants to control things then it must also provide. Sacramento and
DC have ignored a fundamental problem- we have 38 million people and a water
system built for 19 million people. Right now they have us arguing over trivia.
The 200 gallons we save on the lawn is dwarfed by the 3200 gallons each family
consumes in our food each day.
I am left-leaning. I also live in the California Delta, in ag country. My summer job is in ag. I have long been confounded by the fact that there is little to no infrastructure in SoCal for storing water. Fur the last series of drought, I remember hearing on the news that NorCal farmers were either having their water allotments cut by 50-80%, or losing them entirely, on the same day that several millons of gallons of water were dumped into the ocean in SoCal. No attempts are made to capture. Greywater systems are not encouraged, either. Instead of building tunnels, let's dig reservoirs in SoCal. Recycle and reuse.
ReplyDeleteI am left-leaning. I also live in the California Delta, in ag country. My summer job is in ag. I have long been confounded by the fact that there is little to no infrastructure in SoCal for storing water. Fur the last series of drought, I remember hearing on the news that NorCal farmers were either having their water allotments cut by 50-80%, or losing them entirely, on the same day that several millons of gallons of water were dumped into the ocean in SoCal. No attempts are made to capture. Greywater systems are not encouraged, either. Instead of building tunnels, let's dig reservoirs in SoCal. Recycle and reuse.
ReplyDelete