Landscapers Hope For Relief From Denver Water

Jesus Medrano sees the irony.

In 1974, he came to Colorado from Mexico for a job – cutting the grass in cemeteries for $2.50 an hour. Today, the company he built with partner Tom Fochtman, Denver-based CoCal Landscape, tends to 200 of the best-kept, most visible lawns and gardens from Pueblo to Greeley.

This summer, Medrano is turning away dozens of workers looking for the same break. Drought, watering restrictions and a sagging economy have drained money out of the landscape industry.

But there is a ray of hope for landscapers. Denver Water could grant some economic relief and sound a signal about the drought's end at its board meeting Wednesday.

Specifically, because of a decent winter snowpack and a wet spring, the board could lift its ban on daily watering of new sod and grass seed and extend generous rebates to home and business owners to change their landscaping to conserve water.

Some, however, would like to see the measures kept in place until reservoirs refill as an insurance policy in case dry weather resumes this summer. And while the landscaping industry cries poverty, some, including Denver Water board members, are skeptical.

The Denver Water board's Andrew Wallach said the agency has not singled out the landscapers and sod growers but sought to cut water use that is most discretionary, namely new lawns and overwatering with sprinklers.

Denver Water has encouraged home and business owners to continue to water their trees, shrubs and perennials, as well as allowed a twice-weekly watering schedule that will save at least portions of existing lawns and gardens, Wallach said.

When the board passed its restrictions in April, it was faced with the possibility of a year as dry as 2002, he said.

"I understand the economics of the landscaping industry, but at some point, we had to make judgment calls based on the water we have and the highest priority use," said Wallach, whose wife is a landscape architect.

Exactly how hard lawn-care crews, nursery operators and sod growers have been hit is anybody's guess.

The industry's case for leniency from watering restrictions is built on broad financial assumptions and anecdotes, according to those who want water conserved not only until drought-depleted reservoirs refill but indefinitely.

A close reading of a report paid for by Green Industries of Colorado, or GreenCO, a coalition of state landscaping associations, backs up that case.

In February, GreenCO held a press conference to report that a study it had commissioned found the $1.4 billion industry lost $75 million in 2002, compared with 2001 – a direct hit caused by the drought and watering limits last year, according to GreenCO.

GreenCO would not provide the study to the Denver Post, despite several requests. But a copy obtained from a GreenCO member showed that the financial impact was "based on many assumptions," qualifiers, limited data and broad estimates, according to the Colorado State University Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, which did the report.

There is no fuzzy math for CoCal's owners, however. Fochtman and Medrano have no doubt they and would-be employees are paying the price for the current watering limits.

Last year, in the second summer of a three-year drought, they employed 350. This summer, the company has about 300 workers. CoCal has avoided layoffs simply by not hiring new workers.

Last September and October alone, after a ban on watering new lawns took effect, CoCal lost about $500,000 in sales, Medrano said. Fochtman said losses for the company, related to the drought, could reach $3.5 million this year.

"That's not going to kill us; we're a large company," Fochtman said, adding: "We don't like it."

But he has another figure in mind, as well.

"The fact is, we employ 350 people most summers, and these people have families," Fochtman said. "When you take the spouses and kids, there's potentially 1,200 to 1,500 people that are impacted by what we're able do at CoCal Landscape."

Don Schlup, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Sod Growers Association, said if Denver Water lifts its ban on new lawns for a few weeks, the industry won't be able to respond to the flash flood of demand.

"How do you hire people and gear up, and then tell them to go home in three weeks?" he said.

Some Denver area homeowners say they are eager to replace the dirt or matted straw that now makes up their yards with lush, green grass.

And others worry that the system may be clogged when the rush to plant sod begins, particularly if the ban is lifted temporarily.

"It's going to make everybody pull all-nighters," said Jennifer Evans, a Denver homeowner who watched her 5-year-old daughter and nearly 2-year-old son play around the straw strewn where a lawn should be.

Her husband, J.W. Postal, agreed. As soon as the ban is lifted, they want sod "immediately," he said.

Al Gerace, whose family has operated Welby Gardens nursery in Aurora for 55 years, said water providers' waffling on rules has confused customers and hurt the overall economy in times that already were tough.

His business, which employs 200 people most years, will lose millions before the drought is over, he said.

He said his family business has weathered three major droughts in Colorado and other hardships in the eight states to which the company trucks its bedding plants. This one is different, however.

"This is the first time a water board has taken a political position that green plants should be sacrificed ahead of everything else," Gerace said. "That is a very negative attitude."

This article appeared in The Denver Post. Denver Post staff writer Trent Seibert contributed to this report.