Lawns are really not the problem though. Golf course maybe. The problem is thirsty crops like alfalfa grown in the desert and then shipped out of state.

I think lawns have an important role psychologically. There’s something amiss to me about continuing to dump water on non-native grasses in a major drought. Part of solving climate change is about changing our minds. And I’ve always felt happy to see brown lawns since the draught started. If the actual effect of lawns is truly insignificant then that’s one thing, but if it’s a borderline case I’d factor in the psychological value. Brown lawns or natural landscaping are a sign of unity on this important issue.

You mention a huge part of an easy start to a solution to one part of the problem a couple times… "non-native grasses", "natural landscaping". It's entirely possible to create a really pleasant yardscape with native plants that require little to no care once placed, and can still supply that green which the human psyche seems to require.

The hard part is convincing the cities to stop fining and harassing folks who choose that over a standard "golf course" lawn.

Agreed. And ooof a state ballot measure to prevent cities from fining people for this might be a good idea hmm...

That’s why my front lawn is dead dead dead but I have a small patch of green in the back. I get the psychology angle, but when we grow cheap commodity crops with irrigation water only to ship them to China where they are fed to cattle is outrageous. We tend (maybe nobly) to focus on the insignificant steps we can take (navy showers?!) personally while ignoring the politically difficult but much more impactful big steps.

Absolutely. Much can be said about superficial activism or "meme activism". We should certainly be concerned with the ways we mine the earth for profit even as we are running out of drinking water. We can build a system that better cares for each person without exploiting the earth for endless profit.

It will take legislation to cut off the golf courses.

Most likely it will need a ballot measure, because what legislator is going to vote for cutting off the golf courses?

I live in a small ag-town in Merced county and we are currently allotted 3 days a week to water our lawns. During the last drought it was reduced to 2 days a week. This is a city ordinance and I suppose it’s up to the different cities to enact their own limits.

2 days a week is not enough water to keep a lawn alive when the highs hover around 100F in the summer. Many people converted to “drought friendly” landscaping, and there was a boom of lawn painting services. (Painting your dead lawn green so it still looked alive)

Does California do reclaimed water?

I ask because experience in Florida (of all places, did not expect but was pleasantly surprised by!). They reprocess waste water back to non-potable, but sterilized standards, then run it out a parallel pipe system for irrigation use.

Makes perfect sense, especially since you effectively get (1) geologic filtration & (2) lower discharge volume treatment effort for free.

Santa Monica has a dry-weather runoff recycling facility SMURFF, many millions of litres/day. Sells/trades it back to other LA cites, and locally for landscape irrigation and toilet flushing. They do guided tours, well worth going.

In ny hometown near San Diego the water from the local sewage treatment plant gets used by some nearby avocado farms.

Monterey county uses reclaimed water for agriculture, I'm sure there are others as well.

Irrigating non food crops hopefully? Idk anything about water filtration so maybe it’s fine?

Depends on the initial use. Water treatment is a surprisingly interesting (to me at least) rabbit hole.

You don't really control the upstream: someone flushing their toilet, or a laundromat dumping solvents down the drain?

But it's a solved problem to continually test the incoming water supply for the basics (pH, TDS). Plus intermittent checks for full workup (heavy metals, etc).

After that, it's a question of working it through the appropriate steps to get it to the state you want. Sort of like a continuously operating manufacturing line, except you get to blend the product at the end and only have to QA the blended result.

As someone quipped, "Dilution is the solution." Given enough volume and time, you can dilute even an arbitrarily large amount of lead to safe levels.

I've got news for you: wild animals shit on your food crops all the time.

My father was in livestock pathology and always had a chuckle whenever spinach or (insert product here) would claim field contamination.

His verdict: 9/10 it's rat feces at the processing or packaging plant.

But from a marketing perspective, field crop contamination is an act of God. Can't be helped.

Plant contamination would actually mean someone was at fault. And would require (expensive) changes.

The issue when it's people is it let's parasites enter a lifecycle which isn't complicated. Human feces is more likely to have parasites infectious to humans

Right but apparently that doesn't kill me. The question is what happens to industrial runoff in the water stream and if that has any effect on food safety.

I think (someone correct me if I'm wrong) US stormwater / runoff systems have to be isolated from sewer systems. Maybe an EPA requirement?

So reclaimed water is typically dealing with "anything anyone puts down a piped drain in their house."

(That said, I think there are also runoff processing requirements before discharge into waterways too)

Lawns only use about 3.5 to 5% of the water used in California. Focusing on saving that water isn’t going to help much.

https://ucanr.edu/sites/UrbanHort/Water_Use_of_Turfgrass_and...

Using 5% of your water on something entirely optional seems like a good place to start cutting.

If targeting California homeowners of all the loud, politically active groups of people to achieve an absolute best case scenario of 5% gains is a good way to start, you’re not going to finish.

Sure, but it will help some. There is no silver bullet for solving our water resource problems. It is going to take a massive patchwork of partial solutions to even approach something resembling a solution. Balking at small changes is a sure way to ensure that we never make progress. In the post-script of the 2016 update to the book, Cadillac Desert, Mark Reisner makes the point that during the time L.A. County's population increased 40%, it's water usage remained constant due to it's water conservation efforts. That is huge not just for water resources but also CA's greenhouse gas targets. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to pump water from the Delta down to southern California and over the mountain ranges that encircle Los Angels.

> outside of your two specific days

…a week?

…a month?

A week, yes lol

I live in Southern California, and the lawn watering rules were surprisingly lenient during the last drought.

I know someone with only two watering days allowed in Santa Cruz County in CA.

California typically orders similar or more severe restrictions during shortages, but residential use in total is such a small share of water use that residential conservation is mostly symbolic.

Some counties (maybe Sonoma?) are restricting residential irrigation like you described. Maybe even a complete ban.

IT's just insane that you have grass, the worlds leading useless crop, in a desert.

I don’t disagree and I don’t like having it. I think AZ-style dry landscaping is the neatest concept on earth. However, HOA rules prevent me from changing my grass.