It’s the Desert, Silly.

A West Jordan woman who has xeriscaped her lawn apparently is drawing complaints from her sprinkler using neighbors.

Four years ago, Eframo heeded then Gov. Olene Walker’s plea for Utahns to fight the drought by conserving water. She studied the “Slow the Flow” messages from the Jordan Valley Water Conservation District and the city of West Jordan itself – neither of which apparently expected anyone to take them seriously.
Eframo shut off her sprinklers and planted more than 200 drought-resistant plants. She sees her effort at xeriscaping as a hope for the future; her neighbors see it as an attack on their property values.
Eframo has a message for suburban Utah and its acres of water-sucking lawns: “Get off of it-we’re living in a desert!” she says. “We’ve got to save water.”

But Eframo’s neighbors are complaining, the gist of the issue being respecting your neighbors and adjusting your landscape to blend in,according to South Jordan’s water conservation technician Steve Glain.

But Eframo complains that it is her neighbors who are unwilling to compromise. “It’s unbelievable the amount of water they waste. You would think they never heard of the drought,” she says.
West Jordan’s government Web site says homeowners “need to maintain a water-wise lifestyle, even after the current drought ends, in order to protect our scarce resources for future generations.”
To encourage conservation, the city presents annual Water-Wise Landscaping Awards, including one for “Residential Water Miser.” When the city presents the awards this week; Eframo doesn’t expect to be a winner.
When Eframo landed in court last year facing several hundred dollars in fines, lawyer Steve Stewart took her case for free. Stewart got the case thrown out on a constitutional issue, arguing that West Jordan’s law was too vague to be enforced fairly.

But it appears that Eframo’s neighbors are more concerned about property values than conserving vital resources:

City Prosecutor Michaela Andruzzi, who believes Eframo’s dry lawn could pose a fire hazard, says the city wants Eframo to comply with the ordinance. “We want to keep our neighborhoods looking nice and our property values high. We are not trying to put people in jail for an ugly yard.”

So municipalities urge residents to conserve water, yet waiver to and fro when it comes to actually taking a stand on the issue?

The controversy puts David Rice, Jordan Valley Conservancy District conservation programs manager, in an uncomfortable position. The district’s demonstration gardens are an inspiration for xeriscapers through the valley.
“We are trying to educate the public. A lot of people out there get the message and they want to implement our ideas,” he says. “We applaud them.”
But, Rice says, “That’s where the complication comes in. We have no say or jurisdiction on what individual municipalities do or don’t do in their landscaping ordiÂnances.”
“We put ourselves in the position of encouraging people to do things when the city doesn’t allow it. It’s troubling.”

I support Ms. Eframo’s efforts and ideas. I have always supported the concept that sprinklers need to be used less and less and people need to get over the idea that a beautiful yard means green grass that has to be watered daily in a desert. I see more and more yards being xeriscaped and that puts a smile on my face.

The article in the Salt Lake Tribune publishes this information at the end:
For more information
* For water wise tips from Jordan Valley Conservancy District: http://www.slowtheflow.org
* For a look at West Jordan Water-Wise Landscape Awards finalists, go to http://www.wjordan.com, mouse over the government tab and then the link to water conservation.