Recent letters to the Public Forum from Ted Wilson and two others recently spoke out against artificial turf and rock slabs in response to the complaint of a homeowner in the Salt Lake City area required to remove artificial turf.
Wilson specifically noted that turf and rock slabs prevent ground water infiltration and are bad for bees and butterflies because there would be fewer plants and flowers.
I am a retired engineer who did groundwater modeling (not a hydrologist) and delayed this response until I could check with a groundwater hydrologist.
First, artificial turf is not impermeable and even if a vegetative/weed barrier is used, it is not impermeable. And there are extensive cracks between rock slabs and water can infiltrate.
Furthermore, the annual precipitation is about 15 inches per year, while evaporation is more than twice this. So there is minimal, if any, infiltration of natural water to ground water on urban Salt Lake City lots. Any significant infiltration is from people over-watering lawns.
Even the water from lawn-watering primarily goes to evaporation, transpiration by grass and plants and runoff down the gutter.
Also, there is nothing that prevents planting trees, shrubs, rose bushes, etc., in conjunction with rock slabs (I have with many bees) and artificial turf.
Artificial turf and rock slabs are environmentally desirable (use bubblers for plants) in the desert climate, and Las Vegas and other cities provide a financial incentive for them.
David Bernhardt, Murray
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