Ed Brault: Let public areas go brown before our lawns do

For the last 15 years I have worked to get my front and back yards exactly the way I want them. I refuse to stop watering my property until I see brown lawns in all the following places: City parks, CSU Stanislaus, Covenant Village, the cemetery, public schools, Emmanuel Medical Center, Turlock Golf and Country Club, Peacock Estates, center dividers, the Civic Center and the County Fairground.

Let the pain of the drought be shared evenly and fairly throughout the community. And it boggles my mind that the government hasn’t banned all new planting of farm crops, all new swimming pools and all new wells. For heaven’s sake it’s a crisis!

I am supposed to stop watering my lawn and flowers so some farmer can plant a new orchard and get rich selling almonds to China. And I really don’t want to hear that all the places mentioned above are using recycled water.

This story was originally published May 7, 2015 at 11:44 AM with the headline "Ed Brault: Let public areas go brown before our lawns do."