Editor's Note: For the last few months, RANGE has been working with the junior and senior students at The Community School to help each of them develop a piece of journalistic writing about a local or recent news topic that interested them. As they reached the end of the capstone project, we selected a few articles that we professionally edited and will be publishing on our website in the coming weeks as part of a series we're calling The Young RANGE. Through this project we've been constantly in awe at the level of student engagement, the quality of work and the RANGE of topics the youth were passionate about. We're beyond excited to introduce you to these students and their work, continuing with today's piece on the problems with the traditional American lawn, and what Spokanites can do about it. - Erin Sellers
Americans enjoy our yards immensely. We love our yards so much we spend upwards of 60 billion dollars annually on lawn care. So why do we love our lawns so much? And why might that be a problem?
America did not start out with a large lawn culture. At first, turf grasses were planted and unmowed, used for feeding livestock like sheep and goats. Eventually, European ideals of a close-cut lawn as a symbol for wealth were carried across the ocean and took root, first on
Thomas Jefferson’s famous estate, Monticello, which has sweeping lawns that can still be toured today.
The American lawn, as we think of it today, wouldn't expand past the wealthiest of estates until after World War II, when our economy was on the rise and land became cheap. With the rise of chemical fertilizers and treatments, the ideal of manicured, green lawn became much more accessible to the growing middle class until it eventually grew into a hallmark of the American Dream, a status symbol and a denotation of conformity to community values and personal success.
But despite the prevalence of the manicured lawn, it comes with some serious problems.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture found that the average American lawn requires 10,000 gallons of water over the course of one summer. That’s enough to fill 250 bathtubs and half of the average household’s total water use. According to Krem2, Spokane County uses more water per capita than almost anywhere in the country — about 250 to 300 gallons per person a day. And during the summer, that water use triples.
Water used to maintain lawns is typically taken from our aquifer and doesn’t deposit back, instead polluting streams and rivers carrying harmful chemicals from yard treatment. These chemicals hurt wildlife by causing algae blooms, which pull oxygen out of the water decimating fish populations and causing poor fishing seasons.
Additionally, lawns take up land that would normally support wildlife but because lawns are monoculture, meaning they exist only of one type of plant, there isn't enough food for these wild animals. This is further exacerbated by a lack of flowering plants to support local pollinators and other bugs. Pesticides also indiscriminately kill bugs. That might sound nice — no more pests right? But pesticides don't discriminate between ants, bees, worms and critters that are beneficial for the soil. Bees and flies are both pollinators that are necessary for flowers to be healthy, and worms help prevent soil degradation and break down harmful minerals, but they’re often collateral damage to pesticides used to keep lawns pristine.
Lawns also decrease the soil's nutrients without replenishing it, which is why grass has to be fertilized year after year. The resulting soil beneath turf grasses is therefore very compact and hard relative to the rest of the area, which increases flooding issues and makes it harder for other plants to grow.
Because bushes, short trees and other shade producers are typically removed to create the perfect lawn, lawns contribute to urban heat islands that are already prevalent in inner city areas.
Not all hope is lost, though. Countries such as Britain have lawns, but they aren't like American lawns. They have a diverse range of different grasses and shrubbery. They are not nearly as close-cut, being allowed to grow longer. There is also less emphasis on lawns and more emphasis on gardens, which support local wildlife much more.
Xeriscaping is also a very common type of yard that is not turf grass. It's the act of putting rocks and low water plants instead of grasses into a yard. This has caught on especially in desert states where water availability is low. Clover is probably the most common alternative for grasses. It grows close to the ground, requires less water, and supports pollinators while being able to be walked on.
Local programs like SpokaneScape help residents replace their grass with drought tolerant plants and hardscapes that help water filter back into the ground all while giving participants a credit towards their utility bill.
So next time you look at your lawn, think about what you could do that not only helps our environment and our beloved waterways, but also your wallet.
