For Mormons, a perfect lawn is a godly act. But the drought is catching up with them

[cbabe]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/25/mormons-lawns-utah-old-testament-godly-act-megadrought

For Mormons, a perfect lawn is a godly act. But the drought is catching up with them

In June 2021, Marlene and Emron Esplin stopped watering their front lawn. Given that the Esplins live in Utah, where maintaining lush green turf is often associated with the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy, the decision to let their grass go brown was a radical act.

“I just felt like it was morally wrong to be watering our yard so much,” says Marlene who, along with her husband, is a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A month earlier, Utah Governor Spencer Cox had declared a state of emergency due to a record lack of precipitation and he asked the public to pray for rain. He declared a second drought-related state of emergency in April 2022.

Like the rest of the south-west, Utah is in a megadrought that started in 2000. As the second driest state in the United States behind Nevada, the unprecedented aridity has hit Utah especially hard. For the last two summers, about 90% of the state was in exceptional, extreme or severe drought, according to the US Drought Monitor. But this did not stop people in Utah – the Esplins notwithstanding – from keeping their grass green all summer long.

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When trying to explain the near-religious devotion to irrigated landscapes, Mormons often quote a verse from the Old Testament (Isaiah 35:1-2) that inspired their 19th century pioneer ancestors who settled in Utah: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.”

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“It is total insanity that the Great Salt Lake is drying up and we are using hundreds of thousands of acre feet of treated culinary water to irrigate the totally useless crop of Kentucky bluegrass,” Zach Frankel, executive director of Utah Rivers Council, said of the thirsty emerald green turf that is the preferred lawn in Utah. Frankel, who is not Mormon, believes well-meaning Latter-day Saints have been co-opted by politicians and profit-hungry developers to maintain thirsty lawns in order to justify the need for more water projects

“The grass lawn is not in anyone’s best interest except for those at the Utah state house who are seeking billions of dollars in unnecessary spending,” says Frankel.

…more…

(Follow manifest destiny and religion to irrigation and dams and big money.)