California City May "Buy Back" Lawns

The city of Fresno, Calif., is considering lawn buybacks as it studies ways to conserve water with the growing population.

The city council's Urban Water Management Plan, which outlines water-saving goals and ways to reach them, includes a proposal to pay homeowners to remove lawns and ban water-consuming landscaping in new construction.

Fresno, with a population approaching 450,000, charges residents a flat rate for water no matter how much they use, a practice that will end by 2013. Fresno residents use an average of 60 gallons of water a day more than their neighbors in Clovis, where homes are metered.

Fresno officials say residents use 75 million gallons a day in the winter and more than 250 million in the summer, much of it to water lawns.

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