Drought-Stricken California’s Wealthy Pay Up to Keep Lawns Lush

[Jesus Malverde]

Mandatory water rationing struck California’s celebrity-filled enclave of Montecito last year and, within weeks, residents created a market based on avoidance.

Gardens stayed lush and lawns verdant as citizens paid tanker trucks to deliver thousands of gallons to homes in the seaside suburb of Santa Barbara. They drilled in back yards, driving the county’s tally of new wells to a record. Some simply paid fines for exceeding allocations, padding the water district’s budget by more than $2 million.

“People feel strongly about their landscaping and want to keep their homes beautiful,” said Patrick Nesbitt, who drilled a well to hydrate parts of his 70-acre estate but let his polo field go dry. “Why should anybody object?”

“People feel strongly about their landscaping and want to keep their homes beautiful.”

Patrick Nesbitt

As drought drags into a fourth year, Californians statewide will confront similar choices thanks to unprecedented consumption cuts mandated by Governor Jerry Brown. Rationing in the Montecito water district, where the typical house sells for more than $2 million and where Oprah Winfrey, Google Inc. Chairman Eric Schmidt and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. vice chairman Charlie Munger live, shows how the ability to stop one’s property from baking brown depends on a steady flow of green.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-04-15/drought-stricken-california-s-wealthy-pay-up-to-keep-lawns-lush

Money talks...

[yeoman6987]

1. I guess bringing water in from other states is a way to

ensure rules are followed and lawns stay healthy. As long as they don't use California's prescious little water then it works, but once they use water in the state all bets are off. I wonder if the state thought of bringing water in from other states. If it works for one community it may work for other areas in the state too.

[MisterP]

3. it's like the old joke about Shaq: the ones watering big lawns are *rich*

the Central Valley hacendados trying to convince everyone that *grass* is the problem are *wealthy*

[Jesus Malverde]

5. Interesting point

[customerserviceguy]

4. Jerry Brown defends agriculture

because it employs so many low-income people, I guess the same could be said about the folks who cut grass for a (meager) living...