I got a
little letter from the Water Department / It said I’m using up more than my
allotment
So the
lawn’s gotta go / The lawn’s gotta
go /
The lawn’s gotta go / And
you ain’t gonna water no
mo’
So I dug up
my grass with a shovel and a hoe /
And hauled it away in my wheelbarrow
‘cause the
lawn had to go / The lawn had to go / The
grass ain’t gonna grow / And
I ain’t gonna water no mo’.
Now, my
lawn mower’s lying in disrepair /
And I spend the weekends laying in my easy chair
‘cause the
lawn had to go / And the grass ain’t
gonna grow
/ The lawn had to go / And
I ain’t gonna mow no mo’ / I
love it don’t you know / ‘Cause I don’t have to mow no mo’ (With apologies to Hank Williams)
I liberated
a couple hundred square feet of turf grass from the dandelions on a lovely late
summer weekend, capped the sprinkler risers, and raised the flow of the
Will it be
claimed by some new lawn in a sprawl subdivision along the edge of town, like
the dreaded Davidon project? Or could it go to the
Petaluma Silk Mill Condominiums? As you may know, the Silk Mill project was one
of many developments held in check by the delay in completion of Petaluma’s new
General Plan, and in particular, our water shortage. Some of these projects, like
Davidon, deserve a quiet demise, but the Silk Mill
seemed to have everything going for it. It promised to restore and reuse a
magnificent historic building. It’s a short walk from just about everything
important: downtown, parks, the library and swim center, and our new transit
hub and future train depot – the epitome of pedestrian-friendly development.
It’s green building at its best.
But like
many rare things, it seemed more vulnerable, in this case, to the costs of delay. The sponsors made
a final appeal to the City Council: let us proceed,
our incremental extra water use is small. The Council, heeded the calls to
caution from staff, yet struggled to find a way to keep it alive. But they
failed, and now it seems the project is dead. The GP sure is taking a long time!
Too bad they didn’t listen to those of us who many years ago asked that it
address the causes and impacts of global warming, which they are now being
forced to do. There’s a price to be paid for ignorance and denial of resource
limits and of climate change, and delaying developments, good and bad, is just
the down payment.
But I’m not
ready to give up! I’d love to see our Silk Mill revived, perhaps with a
combination of residential and business spaces. It could become, as some of my
Petaluma Tomorrow friends have suggested, a center for green businesses. So
here’s my proposal: I donate my old lawn to the project. I hereby cede my
former two thousand grass gallons per year to the Petaluma Silk Mill, to be
used econscientiously by its future tenants. And I
call on you, dear readers, to join my Mow No Mo’ Movement. Sacrifice your lawn,
or your leaky pipes, or your inefficient toilets and faucets, for the good of
the community. Make the Mow No Mo’ pledge.
Am I
serious? Sort of. Maybe the Silk Mill folks or their
supporters can put up a website to post before and after photos, document and
publicize the savings. Maybe a white market for water rights will develop.
We’ll water the plans we like, let the wasteful plans wither and die, and plan
for the day we can prosper without having to take any mo’.