Weaning Long Island off its lawn-watering habit

The lawn as we know it goes back to England in the 17th century. Aristocratic landowners on big estates showed off their wealth and status with unproductive stretches of manicured grass.

Long afterward, the lawn became a symbol of the American suburbs, where patches and stretches of green carpet-like growth marked the fronts and rears of humbler properties owned by the middle class. These were most often worked and watered by the homeowners themselves. The scent of fresh-cut grass on a newly mowed lawn came to be as refreshing a reward as the sight of it.

The lawns of private homes are expected to continue evolving — into something more varied than the traditional, carefully teased sod or turf. Some residents on Long Island and elsewhere have been altering the way their properties, whether expansive or humble, are landscaped. Rocks, native plants, artificial turf, ground covers, mulch and gravel are now all in the mix. There are even growing monetary incentives for native lawn planting, including a rebate program from the Nassau County Soil and Water Conservation District. Diversity in the birds and pollinators attracted by these more creative landscapes also helps to drive the trend away from traditional lawns.

But the most compelling reason to get away from lawns is water and the need to conserve it.

Earlier this month, the Suffolk County Water Authority said it was “imploring” people to stop watering their lawns until further notice. “Our crews are doing everything possible to keep water flowing, but this is a shared responsibility,” SCWA CEO Jeff Szabo said.

Several times this summer, peak demand reached 520,000 gallons per minute — a volume that could fill about 20 school buses. That forces a drop in storage tank levels, which threatens to reduce the flow to homes and businesses and, more urgently, to hydrants used to fight fires. Some of that high usage was in the overnight hours, indicating the draw from sprinkler systems.

Last week, the authority eased up on its appeal to fully refrain from watering even if it meant letting lawns go brown. But officials underscored our need to limit lawn watering to the correct times of day and to odd or even numbered days, depending on your address.

COMMUNITIES OF CONCERN

The severity of rules and their enforcement vary across Long Island. So does a sense of the immediate water problem. Of particular concern, as announced by the SCWA, were Eatons Neck; Kings Park; North Bay Shore; Selden, Montauk and the Town of Southold. To show the serious need for restraint, personnel have gone door to door asking residents to comply with their public appeals.

More permanently, for the future, a cutting-edge measure for water conservation has been imposed in Southold. New automatic irrigation systems must have a “smart controller” and rain sensors, which prevent watering during rainfall or when soil is sufficiently moist. In Hempstead and North Hempstead towns, the Water Authority of Western Nassau has a field inspector who polices for violations, which can lead to adding “service” charges to water bills of the violators.

As futuristic solutions go, desalinating seawater, to which Long Island has abundant access, offers no panacea. Desalination plants produce toxic chemicals and waste, and use diesel, which creates greenhouse gas emissions.

That’s too bad. Long Island has lawns of widely different sizes that together demand a lot of water. Golf courses and corporate parks have been using, to varying degrees, computerized timing and control of water flow, efficient nozzle and spray heads, mulch beds, native plants, and turf grasses that need less watering.

Aside from reducing water usage, there is a growing sense that changing lawns into a different kind of space has other attractions and benefits. Synthetic fertilizers and herbicides long used on grass lawns can have bad health effects. But more diverse plant species near your house can create a mini ecosystem that is more alive and interesting than the traditional greensward. Local governments should resist efforts to issue violations to those experimenting with these programs and instead start an education campaign about the benefits.

RISING WATER COST

The cost of water has been rising on Long Island — recently in Nassau and last year in Suffolk. That’s the world we’re living in; water usage and availability become an ever-growing concern worldwide.

Long Island depends heavily on its underground system of aquifers, holding huge amounts of groundwater from rain and snowfalls. We are a “sole source aquifer region.” If the supply goes low enough, due to drought and excessive consumption, salt water can intrude, threatening to contaminate the fresh water — a disaster from which we are fortunately still far away.

Considering that as a backdrop, the prospect of brown lawns, at least for the last month of summer, might not have seemed so bad.