Fresh water is one of our most precious and limited natural resources. Everyone from builders and landscapers to manufacturers and consumers need to learn the best management practice for irrigating turfgrass. We now understand the carbon benefit of turfgrass along with many other environmental attributes but we need to be mindful of watering responsibly.

OPEI will work with our members, associations of like interests and other stakeholders to provide management practices and guidelines for when and where to plant turfgrass and the kind of grass to plant based on region and climate.

But, we’re headed in the right direction with new, sophisticated irrigation techniques and technologies. This is critical for minimizing the use of water to maintain our lawns.

We also need to make sure government agencies all across the continuum understand the value of turfgrass. Turfgrass is a valuable asset that shouldn’t be regulated away. Managed turfgrass is second only to forests in sequestering carbon and producing oxygen. Additional benefits of turfgrass include storm water run-off capture, particulate matter and dust reduction, and mitigating the heat island effect by reducing ambient and surface temperatures. Many areas of the country need turfgrass to slow down and capture storm water before it hits an already overloaded public sewer system or fragile watershed.

OPEI will continue to work with key agencies and policy makers to explain the benefits of turfgrass while improving our record on water management. This is our next great challenge we will meet.