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Today's Daily News editorial endorses Valley city councilmember Greig Smith's flouting of the city's water law by irrigating his lawn three times a week instead of two. In a city where fewer people all the time even have lawns, it's kind of a throwback issue. The DN says:
Smith became a champion for the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Angelenos who have been quietly risking a fine to keep their landscapes from drooping, wilting and keeling over.We should all rally behind Smith's coming out as a water scofflaw and let the sprinklers run a third day every week. Or a fourth even, if that's what it takes to keep the streets of Los Angeles looking like the streets of Los Angeles should. What does it matter what days we sprinkle our grass or trees or vegetables, so long as we don't exceed water allotments or run the water during the heat of the day?
This little water war was also the subject of my weekly KCRW commentary last Friday. Since then, Smith sent out a detailed explainer on his position. It's after the jump.
For the last couple of months I have been watering my lawn three times a week to test the changes that my motion called for to the DWP's twice-weekly watering restrictions. Over the summer, the DWP limited watering with automatic sprinklers to twice a week to encourage water conservation during the current severe water shortage.
While it is imperative to conserve water right now, the policy was rushed into place, leaving little opportunity for public input or examining best practices.
I live in and represent the hottest region of Los Angeles. About a month after the DWP limited watering lawns with automatic sprinklers to two days per week, I began receiving hundreds of phone calls, letters and emails from residents whose lawns were brown and dying. The overwhelming majority wanted to conserve water during but felt that they could do so while keeping their lawns alive if they were given more flexibility.
Based on feedback from the community, I introduced a motion in late July shortly after the watering restrictions took effect to change two-day-per-week lawn watering restrictions to three days a week. The motion would change the restriction from Monday and Thursday, 15 minutes per day, to Monday, Wednesday and Saturday for eight minutes per day. This would help lawns, trees and shrubs survive while still meeting conservation goals and reduce watering by six minutes per home per week, saving millions of gallons of water.
Since the restrictions were imposed, numerous problems with the policy have emerged. If the soil becomes too dry and hard, then more water is lost to runoff. Thousands of homeowners’ lawns turned brown, which has a “broken windows” effect in our neighborhoods, decreasing feelings of community pride and investment, and hurting home values. I have never seen our neighborhoods looking so bad.
For the last two months, I tested my proposal, and watered three times a week for eight minutes, rather than twice a week for 15 minutes, which the DWP now requires. It worked – my lawn is green again, my plants are surviving, and I use less water then before.
This motion was in addition to my earlier motions that would offer rebates for people who install smart sprinkler systems, allow exemptions from the watering restrictions for people with disabilities, and increase the water allotment for registered horse owners and hospitals.
I take water conservation and green living very seriously. In my own home, I have installed rain water barrels that I use to water my outdoor landscaping, non-toxic home insulation, a tankless water heater, solar panels, an energy and water-saving pool system, and energy-efficient appliances. There are tax rebates available for these technologies, and together, they have greatly reduced my water and energy use, as well as my monthly bills.
I encourage all Los Angeles residents to take steps to conserve water and energy. For some great tips on how, visit http://www.epa.gov/owow/nps/chap3.html.