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It is difficult to be sure what will come next in the wake of Gov. Roy Romer's decision on Two Forks. Some uncharitable people say it wasn't a really a decision, that equivocation might be a better term for whatever he announced.
But the gist of the governor's statement seems to be that he'd like Colorado to start looking at more efficient ways to use water. The easiest way to gain efficiency is quite simple. Let's outlaw private lawns.
No one seems to know exactly how much precious water is squandered on these extravagances. But some experts have estimated that half of all domestic water in Colorado is wasted on lawns.
This is water that is claimed by lawyers, captured from mountain creeks, conveyed through expensive tunnels, stored behind costly dams, filtered and chlorinated at treatment plants, distributed through a vast network of subterranean pipes that were installed at a considerable expense -- all to irrigate some turf.
You want growth and economic development? There are about 3.3 million people in Colorado right now. If half the water we consume goes to lawns, then getting rid of lawns would mean that Colorado could support another 3.3 million people -- without building any new reservoirs or water diversion systems. That is by far the cheapest way to increase our water supply, and thus Colorado's ability to grow.
And that is only one of the economic benefits that would come from kicking this pernicious bluegrass addiction. Coloradans spent about $25 million last year just on new lawnmowers, and likely an equal sum on hoses and sprinklers. There's $50 million that could be invested in education, highways or prisons.
Then consider the time. If my lawn is at all typical, then you can figure four hours a week of setting water, mowing, trimming and the like, for five months a year -- May through September.
This comes to 88 hours annually. That isn't much by
itself, perhaps -- although the average annual vacation is
only 80 hours long -- but we're talking about 50 years of
involuntary servitude to what will the neighbors say if
we don't take good care of our lawn?
Your lawn thus
demands 4,400 hours of time that you'd rather be doing
something else -- anything else. You've wasted six entire
months of your life.
In that respect, lawns are vastly more dangerous than nuclear power plants. The known and presumed risks of living near a nuclear power plant might take two months off your life expectancy. Your lawn is guaranteed to steal six months from your life -- and yet you don't see anybody demonstrating against lawns.
That 88 hours a year gets multiplied by the estimated 1 million lawns in Colorado. To be conservative, we'll figure that all this time is worth just the minimum wage of $3.35 an hour. Lawns thus result in the equivalent of an annual expenditure of $295 million for totally unproductive labor.
Bluegrass lawns don't feed anybody. They don't provide fuel or shelter. They keep the dust down, perhaps, but the native buffalo grass did that just as well, and it doesn't need to be watered or mowed. Lawns may please the eye -- but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and any thinking person must have realized by now that the vast majority of lawns are nothing but a most conspicuous form of conspicuous consumption.
Granted, a few lawns earn their keep -- a tiny minority in public parks and athletic fields. Private lawns, though, are a wasteful habit that we can no longer afford. Outlaw them, and Colorado will grow and prosper. More importantly, we'd all have more free time and more money in our pockets. Who could be against that?
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