Comments on: Will ripping out home lawns conserve water? https://calwatchdog.com/2014/03/12/will-ripping-out-home-lawns-conserve-water/ Wed, 30 Mar 2016 19:57:53 +0000 hourly 1 By: Wayne Lusvardi https://calwatchdog.com/2014/03/12/will-ripping-out-home-lawns-conserve-water/#comment-73548 Tue, 18 Mar 2014 18:00:48 +0000 http://calwatchdog.com/?p=60527#comment-73548 Bill
If you read hydrology studies the hydrologists use about 15% as the recharge rate from urban landscaping. For example, I live in Pasadena which sits on an alluvial fan and the Raymond Basin underneath. The hydrologist who did the study for the Raymond Basin used an annual recharge rate of 10% to 20%. What do you know better than they know? This is what retired water planning engineer David Powell who lives in Pasadena has brought to every one’s attention.

The cost to transport groundwater is zero compared to imported water from the Sacramento Delta. The costs to pump are small and the cost to treat and distribute are the same. So the typical cost of groundwater is around $100 per acre foot and the cost of imported water is now up to around $500 per acre foot. That is what makes groundwater “blue gold.” And if you take the imported $500 per acre foot water and recharge the local basin with it and can recycle it again it becomes cheap water for $100 per foot.

Water conservation works best in areas of clay, loam and sandstone soils. What is called “water conservation” is not very conserving.

]]> By: Bill Gore https://calwatchdog.com/2014/03/12/will-ripping-out-home-lawns-conserve-water/#comment-73484 Tue, 18 Mar 2014 03:53:58 +0000 http://calwatchdog.com/?p=60527#comment-73484 A little bit absurd, don’t you think, to imply that groundwater recharge in cities built on alluvial fans depends on the presence of lawns? After all, this water has to be transported, treated and distributed at great cost.

If lawns are to be defended as a means of recharging aquifers, then IMHO, purple pipe really comes into its own as a means of achieving two goals simultaneously: irrigating landscaping and recharging the aquifer after the water has been used domestically for its more important functions.

While a little patch of cool grass is nice for dogs and kids to roll around on, I look at the lawn as one of those strange cultural artifacts, which began with english manors and flocks of sheep in the Victorian era. Along with neckties and lipstick, lawns increasingly just seem strange water wasters, esp. in arid environments.

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