California drought

Dear Editor: ”Beating” it? Good luck. Perhaps we need to think first about ”dealing” with it. (“Beating the Drought,” Letters to the Editor, 4/9/15)

Those green lawns are nice, but before anyone rips it out, they should consult with City Hall as there are some fairly explicit ”suggestions” within the Municipal Code as to what can and cannot be done with your front lawn and parkway strip.

This might be a good opportunity for the Downey Patriot to run a public-service feature on landscaping with input from the relevant authorities at City Hall?

Mowing? Unless you absolutely have to have that perfectly manicured lawn, there really is no need to mow every week - though once a month may be stretching it in some cases.

But, with our current water problems, one of the best things you can do, both to conserve water and to ensure that your lawn is getting all that it can, is to program your irrigation timer (if you have one, and if you don\’t you should) to water your lawn, trees, and shrubs between 3am and sunrise. As little as once a week for less than a half-hour will be more than sufficient in most cases as the water will have a chance to soak into the ground, and not evaporate off in the heat of the day or be carried away by the breeze (it is rather still just before sunrise).

But, to the merits of the Governor’s proscriptions:

This is from the man who cancelled (40-yrs ago) all of the un-built portions of the Water Project shepherded into being by his father, at a time when CA had one-half the population it has today. And, non-ag uses, subject to his proscription, constitute less than 10% of water usage in CA; so his ”draconian” 25% reduction amounts to - at best - a 2% savings of water state-wide. I imagine that will make the Delta Smelt feel better as a smidgen more water is flushed out beneath the Golden Gate into the Pacific.

But, in his immortal words:

If we don’t build it, they won’t come.

Drew Kelley

Downey

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Published: April 23, 2015 - Volume 14 - Issue 02