To: The Dallas Morning News Viewpoints section 
Date:  December 2, 2011
Subject: Water
Result:  not printed (see note below)



I would like to make some observations about water.

Number one, as one who used to own a house in Richardson, a large incentive for me to sell
it (besides being about broke) was my perception that Dallas is going to become a desert –
beyond the spiritual desert that it already is – because our days of good rain are over with,
or at least headed out. Meanwhile, there in Richardson, you have the whole situation where
there are, like, eight* cities relying on half-empty Lake Lavon. Maybe it's a natural climatic
change, as the world has always been subject to, and has nothing to do with the millions of
tons of pollution that we pour into the atmosphere each year, as the Republicans assure. Or
maybe all that pollution is the pre-mature cause of the apparent warming, created as we try
to sustain 7 billion people in the world with the limited resources and primitive technology
that we have. That would certainly seem reasonable to consider. It doesn't really matter,
though. The bottom line is the planet is warming up. In either case, Texas will be a desert
– just like they say that it won't be so long before products such as coffee and chocolate
bite the dust, because it will be too hot – and the only question is how soon?

Another observation concerns the watering of grass. I lived in Cleveland for a year and a
half , and most people I saw didn't water their yards at all. Therefore, if there was no
rain – and there was a drought while I was there – the grass turned brown. Then when it
started raining, the grass turned green. My own experience in my current (rental) house
seems to support that. I watered my yard regularly all summer, but it was an exercise in
futility, with my bermuda grass remaining mostly brown throughout. The parts I watered
looked very little better than where I did not, like between the fence and the alley. Then
it started raining there for a while, and my lawn got totally green. I'm not a grass expert,
so I don't know, but obviously it would behoove us to alter our whole idea of what a yard
ought to look like, and move towards native grass, or rocks – until next thing you know,
we've got a rock shortage.

I do think that, when it comes to what will be substantially rising water rates as time goes
on, that the water that people use to water their lawns should be billed at a higher rate
than the water they drink and use for general household purposes other than the lawn.
Maintaining a beautiful lawn is one of those luxuries that should be paid for accordingly.

One issue we have with water is we can't get it from Lake Texoma because of zebra
mussels. My feeling there is that if Lake Texoma can live with it, so can we. It's only a
matter of time before we get them, anyway.

Thinking of ways to save water inside the house, I noticed I have one bad, wasteful habit
in the kitchen that could be fairly common. I'll turn on the hot water at full blast, for it to
get hot as soon as possible, and then just leave it running like that even though much less
pressure is needed for what I'm doing. I'm trying to watch out for that.

My final thought about water concerns recycling. Has anybody ever calculated how much
water is used to rinse out all those cans and bottles and plastic food containers? I myself
remain a dedicated recycler, but as I do all that rinsing – I admit, sometimes leaving the
faucet running in between items – I think about the water I'm using to do it. I have stopped
trying to clean out things like peanut butter jars that are hard to clean, and just throw them
away. Of course it's still good to recycle newspapers and plastic bags – which I use because
I hate those carry-in bags (even though I want to sell them), and just prefer to be a diligent
recycler.

Thank you, John Vehon

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Notes:
 
They found another lady to say in a letter to the editor some time later that her unwatered
grass turned green when it rained – so there was no need for my submission. That would
be The Dallas Morning News's explanation, if you asked.
 

* Apparently it's more like 40 cities that rely on Lake Lavon