Is Lush Green Grass a Thing of the Past?

A number of recent ecological occurrences have collectively rung the warning bell on depleted groundwater supplies. To be fair, such bells have been ringing for years, though few have been listening. Even the most optimistic experts have long acknowledge that Florida has, at best, a couple of decades before it faces serious challenges in meeting freshwater demand. Obviously, some very hard choices are going to have to be made, and the longer we wait the more dire our options become.

It would seem to me that the easiest is for what I'll call ornamental use. It's always amazed me as to what lengths Floridians will go in order to create an environmental facade on the patch of land in front of their house. So seemingly offended are we by the variety of native coverings, that we are willing to spend considerable money and direct precious natural resources in creating an artificial life support system for vegetation that could not otherwise survive in our environment.

But as I write this column, some frightening geological evidence is beginning to suggest that our supply of groundwater is in even more trouble than we've thought, while demonstrating how easily things can go from bad to worse in a hurry. We've all learned about the water cycle back in first grade. In fact, I'd bet most of you can even recall the little cartoon diagrams that explain the process by which water leaves and returns through evaporation and precipitation. What has happened increasingly all over the globe is a process called desertification. Land degradation through development and short-sided agricultural use have reduced the overall permeability of Earth's land. When rainfall cannot be absorbed by the ground on which it lands, it creates runoff, more and more of which is finding its way to our oceans where it is forever lost to our rising supply of saltwater.

The ensuing droughts compound this effect as more and more of what was once permeable land hardens. To make matters worse, population growth and the related need for a larger food supply has meant that we have to increasingly look to pumping water out of our aquifers in order to meet agricultural and drinking water demands. No one knows exactly how much water is beneath the ground, but we do know that we are pumping it out at about 15 times the rate of which it is being replenished by precipitation. Anyone who has lived in Florida for 10 years can tell you that our "rain season“ is not what it once was, and the current drought we are facing isn't a freak occurrence.

Long-term studies have shown that convective rainfall has decreased in our state throughout the 20th century, coinciding with the replacement of its natural vegetation with current land cover. Simultaneously, two factors have been at play: the development of more and more historical wetlands and an almost exponential growth in permits for new wells to pump groundwater. You cannot have a conversation about pumping groundwater without discussing phosphate mining, one of the thirstiest industries of all, using more water in many regions than all non-commercial uses combined.

Agriculture can also be a major strain on groundwater. A prolonged cold snap in 2010 led to massive irrigation by strawberry farmers (about a billion gallons daily) to submerge their crop in order to protect against a freeze. Sinkholes, which had been on an epidemic rise for years, spiked again shortly after. It seems clear that we will not be able to meet all demand for mining, agriculture and residential use. Up the road from us, the Suwannee River Water Management District warned that North Central Florida is experiencing the worst drought since 1932, urging "everyone" to reduce water. They didn't mention a moratorium issuing new permits or curbing use on existing ones, however.

So it would seem that if we continue to lack the political will to put serious pressure on the phosphate and agricultural industries, the share of residential supply will continue to shrink as population grows. Under these circumstances, it seems asinine that we would allow lawn-sprinkler water to compete with drinking and bathing water by allowing it to be used freely, at the same price point. But this is Florida and that's what we do. Never mind that all of the chemicals used to create our lawn-life support system are also washed off of it by that same very water, too much of which finds its way back into the very same supply.

Many native bunch grasses, or other Florida-friendly coverings like perennial peanut for example, grow very well even in salty, sandy areas, with no irrigation at all and are an excellent alternative to resource-intensive turf grass. As an additional bonus, they are very low maintenance, needing to be cut as little as once per year. Floridians might prefer the blue grass of Kentucky, but if they truly understood the cost of supporting such landscaping, along with the future price they will be passing on to their children and grandchildren who may one day find acquiring enough freshwater for a daily bath to be a challenge, I'd like to think they'd find the will to endure our paradise closer to mother nature's intention. Then again, there's an indoor ski resort in Dubai that suggests I'm giving mankind too much credit.