Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumDuring Worst Drought On Record, TX AG Drills Well To Keep Watering His Lawn
With what has been described as the worst drought in recorded history punishing parts of Texas, Attorney General Greg Abbott found a way to keep watering his yard without risking fines or incurring huge monthly bills: He drilled his own well. Now his lawn is green, and there are no pesky city watering restrictions to worry about.
He is not alone. Abbott, the leading 2014 candidate for Texas governor, has joined an exclusive and growing list of Austin residents. That list includes Ben Crenshaw, the golfing legend, and Mack Brown, the University of Texas football coach residents who are coping with the drought and rising water bills by procuring their own private water supply underneath their land.
But the trend is worrying city leaders and environmentalists, who fear that the rise in well drilling in rapidly growing Austin will negatively affect limited groundwater supplies, reduce the flow into rivers and discourage conservation. To me its just unconscionable. Its a total disregard for the resource, said Andrew Sansom, executive director of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University. What we should be doing is reducing our consumption of water.
Abbott installed his well a few months before the city began aggressively enforcing its lawn-watering restrictions, issuing at least $11,000 in fines since August. In Abbotts upscale West Austin neighborhood of Pemberton Heights, where lawns are remarkably green, some residents have put up signs that read Watering by Private Well to avoid reproach at a time when most of Austin can water grass only once a week.
EDIT
http://www.texastribune.org/2013/11/10/drought-abbott-keeps-his-lawn-green-drilling/
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)and here the AG wannabe governor of Texas just disregards conservation of our water. A fine example of a person who does not regard our natural resources with value and continues to do whatever he pleases.
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Texas_State_Water_Fund_Amendment,_Proposition_6_(2013)
elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)I GOT MINE. King Greg Abbott.
elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)I stole this resource legally fuck all y'all.
Ilsa
(61,694 posts)Ilsa
(61,694 posts)scorch his grass out. This attitude that "I can afford to fuck up your drinking water resources for esthetics" is about as slimey as one can get. They should have spent the money on xerascaping and gray water reclamation.
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)in his beautiful green grass. Make sure you cover enough that he has to re sod the entire thing if he want to see his lawn beautiful again.
personally, I prefer the wild look. Never understood what it is with men and their lawns? I guess they feel it's a status symbol because I know men that will take pics of their lawns and text them to each other. I think it's insane.
MythosMaster
(445 posts)Republican't.
marble falls
(57,075 posts)KrazyinKS
(291 posts)It was very dry here also-in Kansas. We had large trees dying. It finally rained this year. That attitude that "I will just drill a wall and everything will be okie-dokie" is pervasive. Why do you think that some Repugs were trying to privatize water? They may be disgusting, but they are very shrewd. They know what's coming, they just don't want others to know it.
They_Live
(3,231 posts)it would make perfect sense. Not only Abbott, but all the others that are referred to in the article, too. Hello? Investigative journalists? Hello?