By KELLEY WESTON
Thanks to the Mountain Express for the report on water use in the Wood River Valley. As a longtime advocate for water conservation, I appreciate the paper pointing out that there are real consequences to our profligate use of water.
It is likely that current problems will only get more severe if, as forecast, summers get progressively hotter and our climate progressively dryer. While I have been assured by hydrologists that, in theory, if we measure aquifer capacity, average precipitation and other factors, there is sufficient capacity in the aquifer. Available capacity and accessible capacity, it seems to me, are two very different things. Developing new sources is an extremely expensive proposition. We cannot and should not treat water as if somehow we can miraculously create more whenever we need it.
There are thousands of examples and decades worth of experience and projects demonstrating successful water conservation strategies. These are designed landscapes with lawns, gardens, trees and shrubs, not dry desert environments. Google "Xeriscape" and you can spend all day looking at pictures and examples of beautiful, colorful and functional landscapes of all kinds that use 30 percent or less of the water of a traditional bluegrass lawn landscape.
In fact, contrary to what Tom Blanchard said, even conventional mature pine and aspen trees could survive quite easily with water every 10 days to two weeks. Spruce, Douglas fir, aspen, ponderosa pine, chokecherry, and hundreds of other shrubs, trees and perennial species are adapted to 18 to 25 inches of annual precipitation. In Hailey, we average 11 to 15 inches, which means if we add 7 to 10 inches of water a year or less, plants would be quite content. In fact, in one case in Ketchum a client's sprinkler system was disabled all summer and the mature trees survived without a scratch. Even a small change such as limiting the use of water-hungry bluegrass, and watering trees and shrubs separately, could save enormous amounts of water over the course of a summer.
As Mr. Blanchard pointed out, our use of water in this dry landscape is irrational. Everyone loves a cool, comfortable area near the house, and many of us need fire protection, but do we really need hundreds or even thousands of square feet of water-hungry landscapes? Do we need to water natural areas as some of my clients do because we object to a bit of dry grass? The answer to this is that we don't have to. We want to.
Each time we install more of the same we create a legacy of water use we will have to live with going forward or perhaps redo at great expense if we someday reach a real crisis. We believe in this culture that we are entitled to use the earth's precious resources however and whenever we want. This just isn't true and the sooner we realize it the better off we and our children will be.
_______________________________________________________
Kelley Weston is a Hailey resident.
