Wayne Lusvardi is a nit wit

Wayne Lusvardi "writes on water policy," and if his recent article, "Drought: Tearing up lawns is short-sighted" is a typical example, he should write about something else. Mr. Lusvardi want's us to all keep watering the lawns here in California because in a few places this wasted water will be recaptured. He thinks that in the few places that this might happen up to 15% of wasted lawn water could be recovered. Oh, he added that without lawns poor urban people will park their cars on bare dirt.

I have had an all native California yard landscape for over 12 years. I have used no domestic water on it for 11 years. Additionally, eliminating lawns and replacing them with native plants has many more benefits than water savings. Just reducing the use of water polluting pesticides, and fertilizers saves money and helps the environment. Other wildlife needs native plants, most obviously lepidoptera, and birds. Fourth, more lawn irrigation water runs off from sidewalks, and driveways that his fantasy 15% recovery to ground water. Fifth, I have no need to waste months of my days weeding, or mowing lawns.

But the fundamentally stupid bit is Mr. Lusvardi's notion that the extremely limited "recovery" thinks might be gained (15%) can match the minimum 50% of annual water saved by replacing lawns with regionally native plants. This is even if we use his doubtfully accurate numbers.

I cannot avoid the stench of racism in Lusvardi's assertion that all "we’re going to end up with is low income neighborhoods tearing out lawns and residents using the bare dirt for parking cars."

Over the years I had a lot of fights with the city (Dana Point) code enforcement officers (AKA Lawn Nazis) about having a native garden. This was apparently a training exercise for new hires. I finally ended it with this little sign. Now everybody is happy: