Should we be watering our grass in Porterville?

Editor, As the drought continues and the underground water table is not being adequately replenished, it would seem to me that homeowners, businesses, churches, and the city itself had better start realizing that watering grass is not good citizenship anymore.

Yes, nice lush expanses of grass are very nice, if you have lots of extra water around. We don’t. Ask East Porterville residents about that.

We put in a gravel lawn a few years back, sold the lawnmower, and went to drip irrigation for trees and bushes. That may not solve the problem of a city that is drying up, but at least we have the satisfaction of knowing that we are now part of the solution, and not part of the problem.

I have heard the argument that grass enhances the value of the property. What will your property be worth when the wells run dry?

When I was a kid, we had no grass around our house. The school playground was bare dirt. The City Hall was on a bare dirt lot. Gee, how did we survive?

A few years ago, we visted Santa Fe, NM. At that time, the average water bill was $350 a month due to the scarcity of water. We did not see many green lawns.

There are lots of ways we can cut our consumption of this scarce resource, but the luxury of nice green lawns is certainly something we need to address for a start.

Bill Warner Porterville