Heartbreak Over the Sierra’s

On a recent flight to Idaho, we flew over a lot of the Sierra’s and Lake Tahoe. It was sad to see so many small lakes and even Tahoe’s shores were severally receded. Some serious proof that the West is hurting when it comes to water. Even on a recent road trip to Oregon we noticed in the usually green state, the hills were a lot more yellow than normal and a lot of the rivers were reduced to small streams. It’s sad to see so many states in such desperate need for water but it’s reminder we as a planet need to mend our ways. We need to start going the extra mile to reduce our water consumption and carbon footprint on the planet. Sadly not everyone really cares that much about their future or the future of the planet. 

On a trip to Southern California we got a healthy dose of how much people down south really don’t care about the dire need to conserve water. Driving around a lot of the inland empire communities, we noticed that people are grossly over watering their yards with lawns. In one community, which is not necessarily affluent, almost every house we drove by had bright green grass in their front yard. It’s as if SoCal’s news feeds and water companies are not reaching out to homeowners to stop watering their lawns. 

Our front lawn is Dead! Our sidewalk medians are DEAD as a door nail. Our watering system in the front of the house only goes off twice a week now and the lawn stations only water for 2 minutes. We haven’t lowered the backyard timers as much because the kids only play in the backyard. And well it’s not comfortable running around barefoot on dead grass and weeds. I will say we probably reduced water consumption in the backyard by 60-70% this summer. We really hope this whole “El Niño” theory is fruitful.

On a sunnier side of the coin, I believe Lake Shasta actually has higher water level compared to our drive in February.