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Photos: Laundry Day in L.A.
Los Angeles City Councilman Greig smith has brought up some legitimate points in the recent drought-related debates, but his most recent announcement about his scofflaw watering may be pushing it. Yesterday at a committee meeting, the Northwest Valley representative said he was challenging the current water laws by watering his lawn three times a week for 8 minutes. "And my grass is greener than it's ever been, and I bet I'm using less water," he said.
Current law allows for lawn watering twice weekly on Mondays and Thursdays before 9 a.m. and after 4 p.m. Residents in his district have complained over the summer saying that the limit was turning their lawns brown.
What's wrong with this picture? For one, to be living in one of the hottest parts of the city, which is located in a desert anyway, and try to maintain a lawn is a pretty ridiculous notion.
Smith has fought the Department of Water and Power before with good ideas such on water conservation rates and how they affect equestrian owners. That makes sense--the horses need to be kept healthy. Lawns, however, are vanity and can be realistically done with native plants under the current restrictions and should be no matter what, considering the impending environmental disaster of global warming that possibly awaits us (after all, scientists say that our particular Mediterranean biome will be global warming's first stops and the feds are concerned about Joshua Trees going extinct at Joshua Tree National Park).
This is no longer the post-war San Fernando Valley. As hard as change may be for some people, especially the those with the conservative values found in the Northwest Valley, it's time to stop whining and get with the program like the rest of us.
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Our lawn has gotten greener since we switched to the twice-a-week schedule. Previously we were watering for 10 minutes at a time three times a week, but our grass seems to prefer the longer but less frequent dousing, even though it's the same amount of time per week.
What is the program?
Pretty soon are we going to be told how deep of breaths we should take because too much breathing can be bad for the enviorment too!
I know that's outrageous.
But come one, I'm tired of the govt telling us what we can and can't do.
We can buy cigarettes pay large amount of taxes, but we can't smoke in public. (BTW, I don't smoke that stuff is lethal).
We can buy alcohol and pay taxes but not between 2am and 6am!
We can water on certain days for certain duration!?
Shit man, I'm tired of it. I think MOST people are tired of it.
The government has a say on EVERYTHING! Slowly... everything.
You may not see it, because like in this circumstance, you agree with it.
As for me, I water 5 days a week and my rates have gone up... but I'm not complaining about paying more.
My dad, who lives in the NW Valley and is conservative, waters 4 days a week.
Yeah, if you own a home you want it to look pretty. You don't pay the mortgage and property taxes to have a house looking like shit.
I don't want yellow/brown grass.
But what I really don't want, is a govt telling me how to live and how to do things.
Why do people in LA believe in individuality when it comes to art, but when it comes to politics and personal choices it's all about being the same?
I am a homeowner. I water three times a week, before 9 am, for no more than 5 minutes.
My lawn is green.
Water is not infinite. We are in a drought. There is no excuse for wasting it.
I am considering a xeriscaped landscape on the front of my house. Like the post says, we DO live in a desert.
Don't give me any of that "the government is taking away my civil liberties" BS (which is the tone of your post). It's such a crap argument.
If you think our government has too much control of your life, you have four options - run for office and try to change it, vote for someone like you, leave, or STFU.
If you don't want the government telling you what to do with your water, than why don't you buy bottled water on the open market to water your lawn with. Water is a finite resource, we are in a drought, our sources of imported water are going down in production and our population is growing, deal with it.
So you are ok with the govt telling what to do and how to do it, at least in the case of water useage?
The govt is like viral disease, once they claim the slightest control they will want it all!
AND, let me back up Zack... SFV is a DESERT. Palmdale/Lancaster are HIGH deserts, SFV is LOW Desert. But still a desert.
Los Angeles proper is not a desert. Zach was talking about the SFV.
Considering people like yourself clearly aren't going to conserve on your own, without penalties / consequences, yes, I'm okay with being told when I can water my lawn.
"Low Desert"?
Sorry, no. That's even more wrong.
I grew up in Phoenix, surrounded by the Sonoran Desert. That's Low Desert. That would be Zone 13 in your Sunset Western Garden Book, for those who don't speak Köppen.
Phoenix. Yuma. Palm Springs. Indio. Calexico. El Centro. Brawley. Those are Low Desert: Zone 13.
Palmdale and Lancaster? Intermediate to High Desert: Zone 11.
The northwest San Fernando Valley is Zone 18. The southeast corner is Zone 20. The surrounding foothills are Zone 19. The LA coastal plain is Zones 21-24.
None of those are desert. Low, High, or otherwise.
The San Fernando Valley is not a desert. It is especially not "Low Desert." That's simply wrong.
Trojie is right!
Why should our water resources be Socialised and government controlled? Everyone should have to PAY MORE for privatized water resources. Then they'll only be able to afford to buy so much water to water their lawns with. Water shortage problem solved!
That's a brilliant solution Trojie!!
behave in a way that's detrimental to the greater community e.g. using excessive water to keep lawns pretty when there's a drought? Your opinion reads like a rebellious teenager who doesn't like to be told what to do which is fine except that you live in a world where you have to share resources. Sometimes one has to put the great good above one's own self interest, and sometimes it takes a government to mandate that people behave responsibly because some people just refuse to do so.
You act like we live under a dictatorship. The government in a democracy is us. We are all making these decisions ultimately.
one of the hottest parts of the city, which is located in a desert anyway
No. It. Isn't.
Los Angeles is not "located in a desert." It is located in an area of mild Mediterranean climate - a temperate mesothermal dry-summer wet-winter climate of considerable marine influence, type "Csa" in the Modified Köppen classification, for all you climatology geeks.
North of the San Gabriels - Lancaster, Palmdale, the Antelope Valley - the Mojave desert - is a desert. A climate where the average annual rainfall is less than half the potential evapotranspiration. An area of constant water deficit.
South of the San Gabriels - here in LA - is NOT a desert. Our annual average rainfall is half again the potential evapotranspiration, nearly three times what a true desert would get, and NOT an area of long-term water deficit.
That's not to say we don't need to conserve water - the local LA River watershed is so small that it can only support a city of about 250,000 people, and we must must import water for for the urban uses of the rest of the population.
Further, the climate here is cyclic, with wet/dry phases corresponding to the El Niño/La Niña cycle. We are currently in one of the dry/La Niña phases, which tend to last from 3-7 years.
But LA is not located in a desert. That's a myth. A frequently-repeated myth, to be sure, but a myth nonetheless.
All I know is that before penning that paragraph, I called the National Weather Service in Oxnard and asked what climate is the San Fernando Valley in and they said, and I quote, "a desert."
But can you REALLY trust the government, Zach? You know it's all a conspiracy.
No kidding. First the GOVERNMENT starts classifying climates. Next thing you know, they're going to start "predicting" what the weather is going to be like tomorrow.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a gun barrel to polish. It's all I can do, since the GOVERNMENT won't let me walk outside and just start randomly firing it in the air. Bastards.
Well, sorry, but they're wrong.
The LA Times repeats this factoid all the time. They're wrong, too.
Like I said: it's a frequently repeated myth.
But it's still a myth.
In the waning years of the 19th Century, the entire southern half of the San Fernando Valley was a giant wheat farm - the Los Angeles Farm & Milling Co, run by Isaac Lankershim - which exported hundreds of tons of wheat every year.
All that wheat was grown without imported water, without pumping water up from the underlying aquifer, without even damming the LA River or any of its tributary washes - just the annual local rainfall.
Toward the end of the century, the land along the Tujunga Wash - today's North Hollywood - was subdivided as orchard plots by Isaac's son, J.B. Lankershim, and planted in deep-rooted stone-fruit trees. Peaches, plums, walnuts, and apricots.
The town of Lankershim became known as "The Home of The Peach." Its produce supported a large fruit cannery and a Diamond Walnut Co. packing plant.
All watered with the local rainfall - no surface irrigation.
You can't do that in a desert.