Editor:
We may, one day soon, be at a point with dwindling water supplies from both Canyon Lake (88 percent full) and Medina Lake (9 percent full). Lake Mead and Lake Powell, our nation's largest reservoirs, are at historic lows, affecting seven western states' future. Drastic action is being taken, probably too late.
We can do better, and must, while we still can.
Many spots on the nearby Guadalupe River are currently at 0 CFS flow … our Canyon Lake watershed. Our waste of fresh water to do nothing more than satisfy vanity lawn syndrome among a growing population of wet-climate expatriates is a non-sustainable situation for Boerne, Kendall County and our Hill Country.
Let's change our grasses to natives (buffalo grass, curly mesquite, vine mesquite) and our plants to native, rather than invasives, where they'll survive during droughts and hot (cold) weather. If you are not sure what those words mean (natives and invasives), visit one of our local excellent native plant
nurseries or our own Cibolo Center for Conservation to find out.
While we're at it, let's think about adding a rain catchment cistern to our rain gutter roof systems on our homes. Let's catch rain that falls on our roofs, not our yards, store it, then use that to water our garden plants later, before it rains again.
There are great examples of closed water/sewage treatment systems/gray water landscaping irrigation here (see Esperanza) where every drop of water is used twice. Landscaping irrigation is limited by the amount of fresh/waste/sewage water passing through that system's plumbing to be reused for irrigation-actually, nutritionally for ground cover, superior to fresh filtered water and second only to rainwater.
This type of land development water policy and low irrigation landscaping policy might be worth integrating into all future development codes for our city and county. If it raises costs of development, our homes and our cost of water, so be it.
It's a have your cake and eat it, too, scenario. It will be better than not having water to drink, shower, cook and launder, when we need it.
–Edward L. Rogers, Boerne
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