Every night at Pomona hundreds of students descend on Frary to get a pre-bed snack of milk and cookies or to fuel up for an all night battle with linear algebra. And every night as these students walk to Frary, the sprinklers turn on, spraying gallon after gallon of water on Pomona’s abundant and neatly arranged lawns. Every morning the grass looks green and perfect, students walk across it and play Frisbee on it, and nobody thinks about how much water it has soaked up during the night. Nobody considers that just a few miles from here there is no grass and no water, that we are living in a completely arid climate.

Nobody wonders from where these hundreds of gallons of water come. Nobody reflects on the cement aqueducts and steel pipes that drag it down from who knows where north of here, or the wells that suck it up out of the ground. Well, maybe somebody should start thinking about it.

Southern California as a region uses a massive amount of water that it doesn’t really have. Claremont is actually unique in that it does not get its water from Northern California or other states but instead uses an aquifer that is located deep underneath the city. However, Pomona’s use of huge amounts of water, especially for lawns, is still a serious problem. When you begin thinking about why Pomona’s lawns are problematic, reasons come pouring out like water from a sprinkler. These reasons can be classified into two categories: environmental and aesthetic.

The environmental reasons why Pomona shouldn’t have so many lawns are fairly obvious. Claremont is located in a desert ecosystem as can be seen by simply walking across Mills Avenue and looking at the native vegetation at Bernard Field Station. Grass that makes up the lawns of Pomona and surrounding neighborhoods does not belong in a desert ecosystem.

It does not belong here in part because it needs a lot of water, something that is rare in the desert, but also because it has not adapted over hundreds of thousands of years to the heat, insects, other plants and weather that make up the ecosystem. Therefore, in order to have grass, humans have to modify the ecosystem in a drastic way until it can support their lawns. This leads to problems.

By pumping water out of an aquifer to feed our sprinkler heads, we are accelerating one part of the water cycle in an unbalanced way. Water that took thousands of years to accumulate under the ground and is supposed to last for thousands more is now being drawn out at a much faster rate. Sooner or later the aquifer is going to run dry, and this already dry area is going to lose its main water source, which won’t be replenished for another millennium or so.

Our impact on the aquifer also causes geologic problems in that layers of rock that were once supported by a large pocket of water are no longer supported, something that could lead to earthquakes.

Our fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides used to keep the grass artificially healthy while far from its natural home also cause serious environmental harm. Instead of staying with the grass and keeping it nice and green forever, these chemicals are washed out, enter the groundwater and eventually find themselves in the ocean. The pesticides kill fish and other aquatic animals while the herbicides go after sea plants. The fertilizers, which end up in the ocean, promote certain types of algae that smother and take oxygen from other plant life. Meanwhile, here in Claremont, the vast, unbroken spaces of grass reduce species diversity and wears out the soil unused to growing non-native plants.

The aesthetic problems with lawns at Pomona are more abstract. Pomona is not located in Amherst, Massachusetts. It’s actually more than three thousand miles away. Yet for some reason, the administration wants to create an atmosphere that is much more evocative of the Amherst College town than the place where we actually are. This may have been due to some sense of insecurity the college felt towards more prestigious colleges in earlier years. However, now almost everyone agrees that Pomona is one of the very best liberal arts colleges in the country. We have no need to imitate East Coast schools in anything, especially not in our landscaping.

Instead, Pomona should take pride in its state, region and ecosystem. This does not mean throwing a few token palm trees here and there to produce a more "tropical" image. Taking pride in being a Southern California school means actively embracing the plants that are native to the area, from flowers and grasses to trees and shrubbery. If you walk to Pitzer’s Grove House, and yes it’s a long way but well worth it, you’ll notice a significant plot of land covered completely with native vegetation. You’ll notice it because instead of the monolithic green fields that cover most of the five colleges, there is a literal outpouring of life, with plants of all colors and sizes living happily and healthily in their native environment. When I think of most aspects of Pomona, the words "an outpouring of life" seems like an accurate way to describe it. Shouldn’t our landscaping reflect the diversity and enthusiasm that is found within our students and faculty?

This isn’t an ecological study or an aesthetic treatise. This is not trying to convince people to go out right now and rip every bit of grass they see. What it is trying to do is increase awareness and discussion of an issue that is incredibly important and has been generally ignored here at Pomona. Grass is not evil incarnate. Many of the grassy areas at Pomona are important for students to socialize and play sports on. Nobody wants to see Marston Quad covered in cacti.

However, there are many grassy areas on campus that are not important in this way. They are watered and mowed on a regular basis, but students don’t use them at all, except maybe to walk across. It would be wise for the school to consider replacing these areas with native plants, in order to create a more environmentally friendly campus and increase the "outpouring of life" that makes Pomona such a great place.