The California drought is in its third year and it’s quickly becoming the worst drought on record. At the beginning of this month the state put tight water restrictions into effect. Watering lawns was frowned upon a few months ago but today intense fines make it out of the question.

For some California residents taking shorter showers and skipping the car wash are one thing, but having to look out to a crisp brown lawn has become all too depressing. As a result of the California drought, many have decided to paint their lawns a bright emerald green using a supposedly nontoxic, specially formulated green paint. It’s a good substitute for overwatering your lawn which can result in a $500 a day fine.

“It became a real eyesore, and we live in an area where everyone keeps their yard really nice,” said San Bernardino resident Jay Torres on National Journal. “I heard about a service where people paint your lawn so it looks like the real thing and thought, why not? ”

Torres couldn’t believe his glimmering green lawn.

“We’ve had lots of people stop over and say it looks good,” Torres said. “It’s this really bright, popping green.” Some of the neighbors have even said they’re thinking of dyeing their grass green to match.

It’s become more and more popular for landscapers and real estate agents looking for some curb appeal. It lasts 3-6 months and once dried, the color doesn’t run.

It’s so popular in fact that Xtreme Green Grass, a company that claims to be the number one lawn painter in Northern California, has seen its profits surge 60 percent of late. I guess it’s this or turf. With California drought conditions like this, natural green grass seems a long way off.

Related on EcoSalon

Is Climate Change Causing the Epic California Drought

California Needs a Miracle to Fully Heal from Drought

The Coming Global Water Crisis and 3 Ways to Deal With It

Image: Kevin Dooley

The post In Response to the California Drought, Many Paint Their Lawns Green appeared first on EcoSalon.

Fifteen facts about golf courses that will make you think twice about picking up that putter. 

Avid golfers look at a golf course and see lush, green fairways, rolling hills, and the summer sun reflecting off the dew. They feel the silence before an important shot and smell the crisp, verdant aroma of freshly shorn grass. But many environmentalists look at a golf course and see a giant ecological disaster. They see wasted water, pesticides, and displaced wildlife. They miss the natural landscape that was cleared in order to make room for the links, and they despair at a parking lot full of gas-wasting SUVs.

The golf industry has received harsh criticism for its lack of environmental stewardship, and the good news is that many golf course designers and superintendents are paying more attention to the environmental impacts of golf courses. More courses are now designed to feature native plants and grasses, especially those that are most pest-resistant and require the least amount of water. Increasingly, courses are irrigated with reclaimed water, taking the pressure off of municipal drinking water supplies. That’s all good news.

The bad news is that golf courses still wreak havoc on the environment, and as more people take up the sport and play golf regularly, the future’s full of even more courses vying for scarcer resources. The golf industry may be trying to change itself for the better, but as these facts show, it might not be changing fast enough.

• The United States is home to about 18,000 golf courses, about half the world total of 35,000.
• Golf generates about $49 billion per year for the American economy.
• It takes about 2.5 billion gallons of water to water the world’s golf courses each day.
• The UN estimates that 2.5 billion gallons of water per day would provide 4.7 billion people with clean drinking water.
• The average golf course is treated with 18 pounds of pesticide per acre per year.
• The average acre of agricultural land uses 2.7 pounds of pesticide.
• Only 29 percent of American golf courses participate in any formal environmental stewardship program.
• The average golf course in Thailand uses approximately 6,500 cubic meters of water per day, or about the same amount as is consumed daily by 60,000 villagers.
• According to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, about 27 million people in the United States play golf regularly, which is less than 10 percent of the total population.
• There are approximately 2,244,512 square acres of golf courses in the United States, an area of land larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.
• The size of golf courses is growing. Thanks to modern equipment, golfers hit the ball farther than they used to, resulting in newer courses being longer and wider than older ones.
• The average American golf course uses about 312,000 gallons of water per day. A desert course (such as one in Palm Springs or Las Vegas) can consume up to one million gallons of water per day.
• The average American family of four uses about 400 gallons of water per day, or one million gallons every 6.8 years.
• Las Vegas is home to more than 60 golf courses. The Palm Springs region has more than 125.
• According to a survey conducted by Golf Digest in 2008, 41 percent of golfers do not believe in climate change.

Image: lana_akaBADGRL

The post 15 Reasons Why You Should Give Most Golf Courses the Finger appeared first on EcoSalon.

10 global events we were all intrinsically part of.

What makes an event memorable? How does a “happening” sear into our collective mindset and take up permanent residence in our hearts and in our souls? Most often, of course, we are not personally there to witness or directly experience occurrences of global importance.

How many of us were in Cairo’s Tahrir square as protests raged earlier this year?

Who among us lost a loved one or ate radioactive food in Japan, or suffered pangs of hunger in East Africa?

In our media-saturated world, memorable events – indeed memories themselves – are delivered to us via an increasingly wide range of words and pictures, bits and bytes, accounts that stream to our attention, some touching us for a moment, some for a lifetime. Here’s a look at our Top 10 (in no particular order), with links to the stories and accounts that made them indelible to us.

1. March of Horrors: Japan’s Suffering

A tsunami generated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of northeast Japan killed nearly 20,000, caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage and triggered a nuclear power plant disaster that unleashed radiation into the environment. Within hours, videos of the unimaginable waves crushing the Japanese shoreline flooded world consciousness via YouTube and other Internet outlets.

2. The Harder They Fall: Arab Spring

Beginning with a small demonstration in Tunisia that grew to topple a regime, flames of unrest spread to Egypt, ousting dictator Hosni Mubarak, and then to Bahrain and Yemen. Eventually Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi would be dead, and even today, Syrian protesters remain caught in a bloody battle with dictator Bashar al-Assad. Did social media enable and perhaps even spark these events?

3. European Disunion: Economic Crisis in the E.U.

The global economic downturn wreaked havoc in the European Union where austerity measures in Greece resulted in riots and protest, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was driven from office, and measures taken by Germany and France exacerbated an ongoing fissure between the E.U. and Britain. Meanwhile, disagreement about how to avoid a catastrophic meltdown flared across the Atlantic, as opinions about what to do remained as numerous as there are pundits and stakeholders.

4. Wanted Dead: American Operation Kills Osama Bin Laden

In May, American helicopters bearing a special operations team raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, whose followers carried out the 9/11 attacks. Within hours his body was buried at sea, and images of the corpse suppressed. Instead, a powerful and now-famous image of White House personnel – including president Barack Obama and Secretary of state Hillary Clinton – remotely watching the mission was made public.

5. The Fruit of Invention: The World Mourns Loss of Apple Founder Steve Jobs

The world lost some great minds to cancer and health issues as 2011 wore on, including writer and polemicist Christopher Hitchens and Czech playwright, dissident and politician Vaclav Havel. But, despite the sense that “it was coming,” the loss that seemed to most deeply move our high-tech world was that of innovator, inventor and Apple Founder Steve Jobs. As news of his death spread across the internet in October – in part via millions of his own inventions – biographer Walter Isaccson’s iBio hit the presses, eventually to set new sales records.

6. From Wall Street to Main Street: Occupiers Take a Stand

Beginning with a September protest in a New York City park near Wall Street, what became known as the “Occupy” movement quickly spread to many major American cities and beyond. The “leaderless” protests are said to represent “the 99 percent” against the richest 1 percent of Americans, who benefit from corporate and political corruption and greed at the majority’s expense. In November, images of a campus police officer at the University of California Davis pepper-spraying students went viral over the internet, instantly becoming a rallying point for the movement.

7. Us vs. Them: Obstructionism Paralyzes Washington

Despite being fractured between party traditionalists and Tea Partiers, a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives shackled the hands of Democratic President Barack Obama and the Democratic-led Senate. On issues ranging from the economy to the environment, American leaders reached a seemingly endless stream of stalemates. Most notably, the President unveiled a massive jobs bill that was labeled dead-on-arrival by members of both parties. The New York Times commented on the political gamesmanship, and EcoSalon presented the many rifts dividing America.

8. Weather, Weather Everywhere:  Climate Change Marches On

With drought in Texas, killer cyclones in the Philippines, and monster floods in South America and Thailand, 2011 was another year in what seems like an annual escalation of climate change and severe weather. Perhaps the most wrenching weather-related disaster was the return of drought to the Horn of Africa. Data continues to show the impact humans have on the world’s climate, yet deniers continue their war on science. In October, EcoSalon named names.

9. We are the World: All 7 Billion of Us

As the human population reached the 7 billion mark (with 3 billion more projected by the end of the century), debates about resources and birth control reheated. Can our planet sustain such exponential growth? In its inimitable way, National Geographic gave us the story in pictures.

10. Ask and Tell: End of Anti- Gay Military Policy in the American Armed Forces

After 18 years of controversy, the Pentagon repealed its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in September. After encouraging those who have been expelled under the policy to reenlist, President Barack Obama declared: “We are not a nation that says ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ We are a nation that says ‘out of many, we are one.'” An MSNBC story covered a historic kiss.

Images: TenSafeFrogs, Official U.S. Navy Imagery, S a l e e m – H o m s i, PIAZZA del POPOLO, bkusler, lwpkommunikacio, bogieharmond, Alex Barth, kevin dooley, woodleywonderworks, Beverly & Pack

The post The 10 News Stories of 2011 You Shouldn’t Have Missed appeared first on EcoSalon.

If you’ve ever seen the movie Chinatown, in which private investigator Jake Gittes (played by Jack Nicholson) stumbles upon a gigantic water scandal in the course of investigating an adultery case in Los Angeles, then you know that California’s water issues go way back.

Water is contentious here because we have so little of it and need so much. California is one of the world’s most valuable agricultural areas. The state supplies over half of U.S. fruits, nuts and vegetables and over 90 percent of U.S. almonds, artichokes, avocados, broccoli and processing tomatoes, yet, most of the water used to grow these crops comes from the extreme northeast part of the state.

Early in the history of California, we built a series of dams, canals, and aqueducts to transfer the Sierra snowpack to agricultural and urban areas. Without this water, most of the areas where we grow crops and many of our urban centers would be virtual deserts.

Warmer temperatures over the past few years and irregular precipitation have left the state with a less dependable Sierra snowpack. Court decisions to protect fish, such as the endangered Delta Smelt, have meant that the water diverted from the delta to farms and urban areas has been cut by as much as 30 percent. And the state’s population is still growing and expected to continue to do so.

With lower deliveries, water agencies across the state are worried about being able to supply their growing customer base. The issue has been framed as a fight between farmers and fishermen, north and south, and rural and urban.

The current situation recently led to the revival of an old idea that was once one of California’s most contentious water battles – a Peripheral Canal. The original Peripheral Canal was proposed in the early 1980s as a way to divert water south from the Sacramento River and the delta. It sparked an epic north vs. south campaign battle, with the north accusing Southern California of attempting to abscond with water that wasn’t rightfully theirs.

The California Water Bond of 2010, (or Proposition 18) created a new water war this past spring and summer until it was removed from the ballot in September by the California Legislature. The unpopular bill was not expected to pass in November so lawmakers postponed it until 2012, in hopes that the public would be more receptive to the bill at a later date.

The bill was to provide ecosystem restoration, groundwater cleanup, funding for safe drinking water, water education, recycling, and drought relief, but the bulk of the money was to go to dams (which, under the bill, could be partially owned by private corporations) and a new peripheral canal. This Civil Eats article summarizes the different issues well. Despite several worthy environmental projects contained in the bill, many activist groups saw it as a way to subsidize water for large agribusiness concerns, while leading the way toward privatization at taxpayer’s expense. Other environmental groups saw the restoration efforts as nothing more than remediation for the damage caused by the new diversion and storage systems that were the true crux of the bill.

The list of groups that opposed the bill included The Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, United Farmworkers, Restore the Delta, the Small Boat Commercial Salmon Fishermens’ Association, and many more. Supporters included Meg Whitman, California Chamber of Commerce, and most of the state water agencies, and a few environmental groups such as Save the Redwoods League and the Nature Conservancy.

Because the bill is due to be resurrected in two years, environmental groups, government agencies, and ag groups are working to educate the public about the state’s water issues.

I recently attended a panel discussion entitled Portioning California’s Water for Farms, Fish, and Families at the David Brower Center in Berkeley CA. The event was sponsored by the San Francisco Chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier, the San Francisco Professional Food Society (SFPFS), the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), and Sustainable Agriculture Education (SAGE).

The panel was billed as an educational session for food professionals and concerned citizens. Panelists were to discuss the need to consider fish, wildlife, farms, and urban areas when setting water policy. Unfortunately the panel was largely made up of bureaucrats and water lawyers talking to one another in insider water language. Panelists summarized the positions of their various constituencies on the water issues, failing to connect the dots in a way that would have helped the audience relate. These long individual summaries did not leave much time for questions from the audience that could have served to bring the discussion closer to home. I can’t say I didn’t learn anything, but as an educational session, it was mixed.

The panel’s moderator was Tina Cannon Leahy, Principal Consultant, California Assembly, Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee. Panelists included: Laura King Moon, Assistant General Manager, State Water Contractors; Campbell Ingram, Program Manager, California Water Program, The Nature Conservancy; Barry Epstein, Partner, Fitzgerald Abbott & Beardsley LLC; Brian Leahy, Assistant Director, Division of Land Resource Protection, California Department of Conservation; and Tim Ramirez, Natural Resources Division Manager, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and Dave Runsten, Community Alliance with Family Farmers.

Here’s what I did learn: Almost everyone on the panel seemed to be for the Water Bill. One audience member spoke up and asked how delta farmers could be expected to subsidize developers and big ag. She identified herself as a 3^rd generation delta farmer and stated that the delta farmers are NOT for this bill. I would have liked to have seen some other viewpoints represented on the panel, and not just in the audience. There was some valuable talk of conservation efforts by municipalities and farmers, but I would have liked to have heard more.

Bottom line is this: We don’t have enough water, yet we need to continue to produce food, supply our cities, and protect our ecosystem. Therefore, we need to educate ourselves about where our water comes from and how it’s used, learn how to conserve, and get involved in 2012. And this isn’t just a California problem. It’s a global problem.

Here are some good places to start to learn more about water as a global problem:

Film: Blue Gold: World Water Wars

Book: Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: DSearls

The post California Water Issues Divide Farmers, Fishers, and Urban Dwellers appeared first on EcoSalon.

Considering that less than 1 percent of all the water on the planet is usable freshwater, we’re not nearly as careful as we should be with this precious resource. Here are some amazing facts to put things in perspective.

1. Set in the desert of Dubai, the Tiger Woods Golf Course uses 4 million gallons of water every day to maintain its lush appearance.

2. Since 1950, water usage in the United States has risen 127 percent.

3. Even though each person only requires 48 liters of water on a daily basis, individuals in the United States use an average of 500 liters, those in Canada an average of 300 liters and those in England an average of 200 liters.

4. Of all the water that enters each household, about 95% of it ends up down the drain.

5. With access to just 5 liters of water each day, more than a billion people in water poor regions around the globe survive on the same amount used to flush a toilet or take a 5-minute shower.

6. If you shorten your showers by just a single minute, you can save approximately 700 gallons of water in a month.

7. Letting the tap run when you brush your teeth wastes up to 4 gallons of water every time.

8. It takes an average of 300 gallons to water your lawn. During the summer, this can account for almost half of your water usage.

9. Every time you throw your clothes in the washer, you use about 50 gallons of water.

10. Another wasteful desert endeavor, the proposed Waveyards water park in Mesa, Arizona will require up to 100 million gallons of groundwater every year in an area that receives a mere 8 inches of rainfall in that time.

So, what can we do? Learn more about water conservation, and check out 100 ways you can conserve water.

Image: Prabhu B

The post 10 Amazing Facts about Water Use Worldwide appeared first on EcoSalon.

It was like lovely manna from the sky, the snow blanketing the mountains as I drove home from Lake Tahoe, flakes turning to heavy showers as we headed down the pass towards Davis.

It may not be the best conditions for driving, but the storms pounding the Bay Area and covering the Sierra Nevada with the white stuff have come just in time to rescue the state from what promised to be the worst drought in its history. In fact, new surveys taken (above) show the Sierra Nevada snowpack is at 80 percent normal for the season so far.

But how much is enough ? State officials tell the San Francisco Chronicle that while the February and early March storms are improving our circumstances, it has all come too late to assure adequate water supplies this summer.

Essentially, sunny California would need its water content in the snow to be between 120 to 130 percent of normal by April to fill the state’s reservoirs, the largest of which is only half full. It could take a miracle. Rains are still persisting on this fine March morning, so never say never.

Still, two years of drought have taken a huge toll, threatening central California growers as well as consumers.

In February, the water content measured just 61 percent of normal after the eighth-driest January on record – so dry Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought emergency and has called for cities to cut water use by 20 percent. He learned that snowmelt runoff in the spring will be just 57 percent of normal.

Heeding the call, at least 25 water agencies have imposed mandatory water restrictions while 66 others (including San Francisco) have voluntary restrictions in place.

Frank Gehrke, chief of snow surveys for the California Department of Water Resources, has been out with reporters on snowshoes, measuring the snow depth and water content at Phillips Station, a state measuring site near the Sierra-at-Tahoe resort.

“Reservoir storage is still way below average, and the likelihood of large-enough storms to have significant recovery drops way off as we move into March,” Gehrke told the Chronicle.

Meteorologists figure the drenching would need to be relentless to raise the level of the water content in the snow enough to replenish the state’s reservoirs.

Apparently, it’s the amount of rainfall in the mountains that makes the difference in the water supply. That’s because 60 percent of California’s water is contained in the snow-covered mountains during the rain season. When it melts, farmers rely on the runoff to irrigate 775,000 acres of growing fields.

Thousands of those farmers are now being warned that their permission to pump water from rivers and creeks could be cut back if the drought worsens, according to a new report in the Sacramento Bee.

This kind of warning hasn’t been issued since 1988 and includes every city and farm with state water rights in the watersheds of Sacramento, San Joaquin and Russian rivers, as well as the central coast and areas encompassing the city of Sacramento.

It’s all a big wake up call for consumers who take water – our most precious natural resource – for granted.

“We are giving you fair warning that even if you start the season with water, by the end of the season you may not have water,” Bill Rukeyser, spokesman for the water board, was quoted as saying in the Bee. “People would be able to continue to boil their spaghetti, brush their teeth, take showers, drink water. They would not be able to water their lawns.”

Lawns are the least of it when it comes to severe droughts brought on by climate change.

There are even public health concerns, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has been addressing how we can be better prepared to cope with injuries and illnesses from severe weather: flood, heat exposure, allergies, respiratory problems, illnesses carried by insects in water and threats to the safety and availability of our food and water supplies.

The CDC says less direct effects can include worry, depression, and the negative impacts of mass migration and regional conflicts.

Images: San Francisco Chronicle, Great Valley Center

The post California Needs a Miracle to Fully Heal from Drought appeared first on EcoSalon.