When Jim Henson’s Kermit the Frog first
sang this song, it had nothing to do with the state of world ecology. Since then the title has become a Ford Motor
Company commercial and an Internet communications network for promotion of
environmental awareness and action. The
idea is not new to people of the Central Coast where insulated from both Los
Angeles and San Francisco by hundreds of miles, we continue to live the good
green life in our own fashion.
Twenty years ago San Luis Obispo took a
California state mandate to recycle some of the trash collected from homes in
the area, and pushed it up a notch. We
separated our cans, bottles and paper and collection okayed by the San Luis
Garbage Company ( yes, they are unafraid of disclosing the reality of that) included
more of the kinds of plastic than just those the State of California told
everyone to do. The Central Coast was
one of the top recyclers in the state while other areas struggled to get
going. That leadership helped build a
market for recycled products to compete in the marketplace and fostered a boom
in new ways to use even more of what is discarded daily. It also fostered new equipment to sort so we
can put all items to be recycled into one bin.
Not long after that success, we hit the big
time with the ban on smoking in public buildings. That one ran well in San Francisco, Peoria,
and Europe once we showed conforming to the new legal standard would not shut
down the business district. Time has
come to show that leadership again, this time with wise use of water.
Living in the west is nothing like living
in Sagamore Hills in Ohio, Albany New York or Spruce Pine North Carolina where
water is abundant and summer means mowing the grass every week before it gets
knee high to a horse’s belly. The operative word for us is a “Mediterranean
climate,” meaning dry summers and (hopefully) wet winters.
Our natural open spaces cycle differently
and instead of copying what others do thousands of miles away, we need to
cooperate with nature by planting low water demand native plants. To use water wisely will always be a
challenge for Californians, not just another method to meet present needs. In
the 1950’s the State Water project was planned to provide water for that time
and forever in the future. It is the
world’s largest publicly built and operating water project and the claim to
persuade voters was that we would never have to worry about water supplies
again. We believed it and passed the
bond measure to fund it in 1960.
However, it’s not enough today, and we face
the need for more storage. The elaborate
system of multiple dams and forebays endow the region with water but at the
cost of natural running rivers and streams, not to mention helping to decimate
fish populations. Not only is it
difficult to be green, doing it right is complex and comes with a pressing need
for compromises.
What does not change is that our water is
limited and it is sheer folly to copy landscaping of the eastern part of the
country where lawns are watered mostly with year round precipitation. San Luis Obispo has yet another opportunity
to lead and I challenge San Luis Obispo City and the Nature Conservancy to
write up an ordinance banning all irrigated grass lawns. With the savings, parks and recreation can go
the professional arena route using artificial turf with a ground recycled tire
base to cushion ballparks.
It’s not a monumental undertaking but it
does have wide ranging effect, such as purchasing a commercial vacuum instead
of artificially watering acres of lawns alien to this climate. The changeover will require a several years
to get into it gradually and give ornamental growers a chance to reorient their
inventory as well as for homeowners to replant lawns with native flora. Count on media coverage and a lot of
disbelief just as it was with the smoking ban in public buildings. Dynamic leadership attracts that kind of
reaction, but we’re used to it.
How about some feedback?
