The Sacrifice For A Pretty Lawn

If you have a lawn in your backyard, you know that maintaining a perfectly uniform and green field of grass is incredibly hard. If you don’t water your lawn enough, the grass dies, but extra water is costly, both for your wallet and for the environment. That’s one thing I find so fantastical about professional sports fields like baseball and football: their turf is superbly manicured, but what was sacrificed for that picture-perfect grass?

San Diego is home to the Padres baseball team, who play at Petco Park located in downtown San Diego. Petco Park is one of 25 parks out of the 30 baseball teams in the MLB that use real grass as opposed to artificial turf. Each baseball field has approximately 120,000 square feet of grass (1). To give some perspective, the average backyard of a house in the US is roughly 10,000 square feet, meaning that the amount of water needed to water one baseball field is equivalent to the amount of water needed to water 12 backyards (2). That’s around 75,000 gallons of water for one field at one time. In addition to that, they sometimes have several games a week at the stadium, and the field is watered before every single game, which could mean watering it five times in one week!

While people at home have cut down on water use during the drought in California, Petco Parks and other baseball fields have not lowered the amount of water they are using on their turf. Although it is important for these professional teams to have good fields to play on, does it justify Petco Park and the other four baseball fields in California using all those gallons of water on the field while the state is battling a severe drought? Worse, Petco Park uses drinking water to irrigate their turf since the field is located downtown and is too far away from any recycled water distribution pipeline (3). All that water that has gone through the process of being filtered and purified is being poured back into the ground when recycled or grey water would more than suffice. Especially in Southern California, an already desert-like area fighting a severe drought, drinking water is very valuable and needs to be conserved.

So what could we possibly do to solve this problem of wasted water in Petco Park? One answer is one that some other teams have taken: artificial turf. It will be just as suitable as real grass, and you won’t get grass stains either! More importantly, it doesn’t need any water, so those gallons and gallons of water used to irrigate the field can be put to other use instead. Another solution is to use recycled water instead of drinking water; a new recycled water pipeline can be built closer to downtown San Diego to be used by Petco Park. The water could also come from all the residents and shops downtown whose water might have otherwise gone towards polluting the ocean. Both of these ideas may be expensive in the short run, but it is worth the cost in the long run for helping to limit the amount of water wasted and to lessen the severity of the drought and the environment as a whole while still maintaining a nice green.

One final suggestion would be to simply cut down on the amount of water used by Petco Park. The grass may not be as vibrant a shade of green, but at the end of the day, having clean water to drink is more important than a pretty field.

Citations

[1] https://turf.missouri.edu/stat/reports/baseball.htm

[2] https://www.homeadvisor.com/r/average-yard-size-by-state/

[3] https://www.recycledh2o.net/2016/05/24/mlb-recycled-water-mia-at-california-stadiums/

Cover photo: VAVi Sport and Social Club

Nestle Versus San Bernardino: A Fight for Water Rights

By Kyle Tianshi, Grade 10

The San Bernardino National Forest is one of nature’s finest miracles–a lustrous unpolluted sky over 800,000 acres of pine forests, soaring peaks, and cascading waterfalls. Amid the picturesque landscape, a seemingly innocuous metal tube runs down the slope of a mountain. The standard hiker might stumble upon a portion of the pipe and pay it no heed, but most don’t realize that it connects an aquifer of natural water to a factory owned by Nestle, one of the world’s leading bottled water manufacturers.

Nestle withdraws 60 million gallons of water from the aquifer every year. Despite claiming they constantly monitor the environmental conditions of the spring and only collect water that naturally comes to the surface, their actions have undoubtedly impacted the forest negatively. Residents noticed a significant decrease in the water level of streams, sometimes reporting that rivers were running completely dry for periods of time. As news spread and protests arose about the company’s extravagant water usage, people began uncovering the true nature of the operation. Nestle must pay a small fee of several hundred dollars per year for a license from the United States Forest Service to gain access to the water. It sounds simple enough, but people were shocked to find that Nestle was operating under an expired permit from 1988.

By 2017, the petitions against Nestle had reached their peak. People were rightly perturbed that a foreign company was somehow allowed to drain millions of gallons of water while the rest of California did all they could to conserve during the decade-long drought. A petition called the Courage Campaign amassed over 140,000 signatures within a few months–and each name under the movement meant an email to Nestle and the California Water Resources Control Board. Whether it was to reduce the staggering number of emails storming their inbox or to get to the bottom of the situation, the state finally began examining Nestle’s operations.

The investigation found that Nestle might only be entitled to 2.3 million gallons of water, a far cry from the 58 million they took that year. The California Water Resources Control Board offered to renew Nestle’s permit for three more years, giving them the ability to continue the operation as long as there was sufficient water in the spring. The decision was backed by the argument that they needed more time to do the proper studies and accurately assess the situation. Though many were unhappy that Nestle could continue the operation, if only temporarily, there was nothing that they could do except sit back and wait.

On April 23, 2021, the California Water Board released a draft cease and desist order, informing Nestle Waters that they must stop all unlawful diversion of water and limit themselves to over 25 times less water than they were originally taking. The announcement came as a huge relief to many Californians and is an enormous step in the right direction.

The war, however, is far from over. As of today, Nestle is still fighting against the Water Board, and the state is finding it difficult to take down a multi-billion dollar company. This is where we should step in. One of the biggest reasons why the cease and desist draft came to fruition in the first place was the overwhelming public outcry from citizens all across America. Sign petitions. Voice your concerns. Generate awareness. And most importantly, the next time you take a sip from a plastic water bottle, think about where it came from.

Citations

[1] https://www.aquariumbcn.com/en/blog/conservation-and-sustainability/water-bottles-in-the-sea-the-big-threat-facing-the-oceans/#:~:text=For%20the%20first%20time%20a,than%20fishes%20in%20the%20sea.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/29/the-fight-over-water-how-nestle-dries-up-us-creeks-to-sell-water-in-plastic-bottles

[2] https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/nestle-gets-away-pumping-californias-water-next-nothing/

[3] https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2020/02/12/lawmakers-open-groundwater-fight-against-bottled-water-companies

[4] https://www.epa.gov/report-environment/ground-water#:~:text=Some%20consequences%20of%20aquifer%20depletion,depend%20on%20regular%20surface%20flows.

[5] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water#:~:text=Globally%2C%20at%20least%202%20billion,000%20diarrhoeal%20deaths%20each%20year.

Cover photo from Urban Milwaukee

Tentative Findings on the Effects of COVID-19 on the Environment

By Emma Li, Grade 12

At this point, “the coronavirus” is probably the most famous household name of them all. Emerging in a series of cases in Wuhan, China in December of 2019, COVID-19 swept through the world at a frighteningly rapid rate, forcing many countries to shut down their economies and borders to stem the spread of the highly contagious virus. The first year of the new decade was defined by the pandemic and its impact—either directly or indirectly—on individual families, blue-collar workers, small businesses, and the 2020 U.S. presidential election, to name a few. As businesses and schools are starting to open up again, most people are eager to leave behind the trials of 2020 and return to regular living.

While COVID has been physically, emotionally, and mentally taxing on all of us, there does appear to be a silver lining to the pandemic’s untimely interference in our lives: some positive effects on the environment. While research on this topic is still tentative and not universally descriptive, many researchers of reputable institutions, including NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the U.S. Geological Survey, and the ESA (European Space Administration), have presented early research that identifies the pandemic as a potential cause for the changing climate.

After the onset of COVID-19 and the implementation of social distancing regulations, satellite images and data show a decrease in air pollution in many high-polluting countries like India. (1) In New York, air pollution levels dropped by nearly 30% during lockdown (4). At the time of its release in November 2020, the European Environment Agency’s briefing “COVID and Europe’s Environment: impacts of a global pandemic” reported “an unparalleled reduction in GHG emissions in the EU compared to 2019” (2). The briefing also mentions a significant decline in atmospheric NO₂ concentration after lockdown measures were put in place in spring of 2020. (2)

Through analyzing the turbidity and amount of solid material in water, scientists have also concluded that general water quality has improved in some areas during the pandemic. (1) Research scientist Nima Pahlevan at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center found that water in western Manhattan has become clearer; satellite data indicated a “40% drop in turbidity during the pandemic in a section of the Hudson River.” (1) Pahlevan speculated that due to lockdown, fewer people commuted to Manhattan, which reduced the amount of pollutants that ended up in the Hudson River and thus improved water quality there.

However, not all environmental impacts of the pandemic have been positive. In addition to reducing air and water pollution levels, the coronavirus has changed deforestation rates, though not uniformly across the board. Despite the fact that parts of the rainforest in Colombia and Peru have experienced less deforestation since the pandemic began, the Brazilian Amazon rainforest saw greater rates of deforestation, as did rainforests in tropical Indonesia and the Congo. (1) Following the same negative trend, the pandemic also caused a significant surge in plastic production and consumption because of global demand for PPE like masks and gloves. The World Health Organization estimated that the global population uses up 89 million medical masks, 76 million examination gloves, and 1.6 million sets of goggles per month. (3)

Perhaps the most grim piece of news is that many experts label the strides made during the coronavirus as temporary. Pahlevan—the Manhattan water quality researcher—believes that “once we return to pre-pandemic behaviors, water quality will revert as well,” and other researchers agree that “environmental improvements… won’t last if the world goes back to its pre-pandemic ways.” (1) The European Environment Agency noted that “while short-term reductions in energy use and emissions may make 2020 targets achievable, any longer-term goals will require political decisions that prioritize recovery measures which contribute significantly to climate change mitigation.” (2)

We know that the environment is deteriorating fast, and that it is vital for us to preserve it before all actions become too little, too late. The coronavirus has shown that if we all act together, we can make a significant difference in lowering pollution levels in our cities. However, the coronavirus has also shown with flimsy social distancing regulations in the U.S. that it takes deliberate policies to enact real change. Without enforcement in place to ensure that people follow the law, there will always be dissenters hindering the movement to restore the environment, just as there are still people refusing to wear masks in order to help stop spreading SARS-CoV-2. Of course, the individual liberties promised by America’s founding documents must be taken into account when writing environmental policies in the United States; but in this day and age, when we teeter at the edge of a cliff where total environmental destruction lies beyond, Americans have to ask themselves what is really more important: their personal freedom, or Earth’s future?

(1) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201208162957.htm

(2) https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/covid-19-and-europe-s/covid-19-and-europes-environment

(3) https://www.who.int/news/item/03-03-2020-shortage-of-personal-protective-equipment-endangering-health-workers-worldwide

(4) https://earthdata.nasa.gov/covid19/