Doomed to fail

Before I moved to Denver, I had vaguely heard of water crises that seemed limited to towns like Robert Lee, Texas - which might as well have been Yemen to a girl from upstate New York. In the Northeast, everyone has plenty of water, only perfectionists use lawn sprinklers, and any vulnerable species has long since gone extinct.  But driving across Kansas on I-70 was like crossing into an environmental battleground.  And when the backpack salesman at the Denver REI laughed when I asked about a rain cover, I knew I was in for a culture shock.

Much of Denver looks similar to cities on the East Coast: lush, green, perfectly manicured lawns on cookie cutter curbs. It is astonishing how quickly you can forget what part of the country you're in, that cactus and shortgrass prairie flourish just beyond the city limits. Many Denverites are transplants from wetter climates happy to continue their suburban lawnmowing rituals, never pausing to consider that none of the grass on the surrounding prairie is green.

Photo credit: http://ow.ly/mfdkh

 Since I moved here, I have become horrified at what I perceive as a lack of concern about water resources. Denver is flourishing, with a revitalized downtown and thriving job market, and it is no wonder so many families flock to the area to partake in the "active lifestyle." But our irrigated utopia is unsustainable - lawns out here are not native, and require a disproportionate amount of water to survive in the baking sun.  Yet thanks to ample room for housing developments, grass is plentiful. Population growth and our water supply are on a collision course, and sooner than many places (but perhaps less soon than Phoenix), Denver will feel the crunch. We have already seen the effects of climate change, from drought to the diminishing snow pack that fills our reservoirs to the deadly beetle kill that has been the equivalent of throwing gasoline on forest fires. We talk about drought and water restrictions as if they are short-term circumstances, but the rapidly expanding Front Range population is already competing for fewer water resources.

 In this blog, I wish to remind readers of this reality. While a crisis is inevitable, the severity of it is in our hands. Building pipelines and increasing water storage are temporary fixes, often with damaging environmental consequences. The only way forward is to reduce our consumption, and to do that we must move away from our culture of green lawns. The arbitrary importance of a verdant front yard has put Denver on the losing side of water security. If we act now, the changes can be gradual and more easily adopted; if we wait until the crisis hits, the antidote will be much more difficult.