Originally published at: Scottsdale, Arizona, bans grass lawns on new homes | Boing Boing
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Next step, stop watering golf courses
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An elaborate, half-baked way to avoid more stringent water use controls–and one that puts the focus on residential consumption when it’s inevitably industry and ag that’s really blowing through it.
I’m not going to object to encouraging people to live in a more sustainable way as individuals, but yeah, it’s time we focused on the real sources of our problems.
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Totally agree. Here is the Wynn Resort golf course. It uses 383,808,000 gallons of water per year, according to data from the Las Vegas Valley Water District.
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Thats about 580 olympic swimming pools. Or the amount of water discharged by the Amazon in about 7 seconds.
Or 1.45 billion liters if you’re boring.
ETA: speling
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Two of my great uncles moved their families from Canada to Phoenix in the 1950’s, specifically because of plant allergies. No grass, no allergies. And then every new arrival installed a lawn.
Now, one lived to be 99 years old and the other to 103, so it wasn’t life or death.
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Vegas obviously has some huge water waste issues of its own but in regards to Scottsdale specifically the city’s tourism website boasts:
With more than 200 golf courses in the Scottsdale area, a portfolio of luxury resorts and year-round sunny skies, it’s no wonder Scottsdale is known as The World’s Finest Golf Destination.
Absolutely monstrous in a desert area suffering severe drought.
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I’m surprised that any of the grass would live through this year’s heat.
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Stop watering them? Hell, build homes and parks on 'em! We don’t need golf courses in deserts!
ETA Gaaah! I just saw the post above re: how many golf courses are in Scottsdale, er, Scottsdesert! WTAF
It’s horrifying to think the Oakland, CA baseball team is looking to move to vegas! All that energy wasted on AC in a fucking dome, in a desert, for a game. Makes as much fucking sense as hockey teams in Flaaarida and the Southwest!
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There should not be grass yards in the desert.
As my dad says when ever something won’t grow around where he lives: “God didn’t put XYZ in Kansas.”
I don’t hate golf courses as a concept as much as some people do, but I don’t see how they are sustainable in the future in places like Arizona. Unless maybe they make it one big sand course?
Note - my Uncle moved down there to a house on a course, so they could be closer to one of the grand kids. They are mostly grown up and going to college now, I wonder if they will move out. I dunno.
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Speling? Was that a meta joke?
But it’s litres not liters
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Glad to see Scottsdale finally doing this. They should also, if not already, pay to remove existing lawns.
California does not do nearly enough of this. It varies by city, but where I lived, no lawn-removal subsidies existed. I tried to do it anyway, but the best estimate I got for it was $6000. Removing lawns is actually quite expensive, it turns out. I didn’t have the money, and because water is undervalued, that amount would pay for watering it for another 30 years. This is the bind that a lot of homeowners are in, and a city subsidy is how you break that cycle.
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Agree with all of this.
I’ll add, though, there are other benefits to this kind of rule. A friend lives in Albuquerque where the city offered rebates to people who replaced grass lawns with native plantings. Not only is their own yard now way more interesting and beautiful, the patchwork through the city has created pollinator and bird pathways that weren’t there before.
So, ya, it’s silly to put the onus of our big environmental problems on individuals to solve, but it’s also possible to make real, positive changes by incentivizing individuals. 
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Xeriscaping! It’s the only way!
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I’m not quite sure why a lawn-removal subsidy is really needed.
Stop watering it. Live with that. If it dies, let it. Then do whatever ‘non-grass landscaping alternative’ is desired, if any.
I.e. just ban lawn-watering and let homeowners figure out what they want to do as an alternative, if anything, themselves.
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Because that doesn’t actually work if you want to have something nice after. Grass is basically indestructible and will always come back the minute you try to plant anything else. You have to dig it all out about 6” down to get under the root system before you can start doing something else.
If you only ever want to live with a patch of dead grass, thistles, and sand in front of your house, then sure. But most people don’t want that. They want to replace the grass with xeriscaping, native plants, etc. For that to work, you have to remove the grass completely.
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Reinvent the game for playing on sand - the equipment would need to be redesigned - but dune buggy golf carts!
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I’m a horsewoman, so immediately got a delightful mental image of dune buggy golf cart POLO!
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On the internet, no one knows you’re a centaur.
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