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Today’s Wall Street Journal writes about “Desperate Sprinklers” who go to any length to keep their grass green in the midst of tightening watering restrictions around the country.

There are 58 million lawns in the U.S., more than one for every two households, and homeowners spent $29 billion last year on their yards, up 9.4% from 2002, according to the National Gardening Association. The average American family of four uses about 400 gallons of water per day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, with roughly one-third going to maintaining a green lawn and lush garden. In total, Americans drench their lawns with some seven billion gallons of water per day, and by some estimates, as much as half of that is wasted — dumped onto sidewalks by poorly aimed sprinklers, blown away as mist from overpressurized spray nozzles and poured into gutters as runoff from over-saturated grass.

Watering restrictions aren’t new, but they’re getting tougher, and experts say this summer’s are the strictest yet. In the Southeast, which is suffering from a severe drought, some Alabama and Georgia homeowners are facing outright bans on outdoor watering while some South Florida counties have their first-ever once-a-week watering restrictions. In some areas of Minnesota and Ohio, a combination of dry conditions and development have prompted regulations. In the Southwest, where water shortages are nothing new, officials are taking bolder steps — raising water rates, charging premiums to heavy users and offering rebates to people who install more efficient irrigation systems. Denver has imposed fines on homeowners who waste water by letting it run into the street. Las Vegas has banned front lawns on new developments.

Near the end of the article, they mention people who ignore bans and simply water anyway.

Another problem: Some people don’t care about fines. In Eden Prairie, Minn., where more than 800 people have received citations this year, city officials have noticed a pattern. Habitual offenders tend to live in wealthier neighborhoods, where a $300 fine “is well below the threshold of what it’s worth to have a green lawn,” says City Manager Scott Neal. One homeowner in Palm Beach, Fla., recently used 11.7 million gallons of water in 12 months — running up a $33,629 water bill, according to public records.

You have to have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal to read the entire story, but they do have a video that goes with it.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 20th, 2007 at 7:18 am and is filed under In the News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.