San Jose cemetery to replace oak-covered hills with turf
By David Poeschel -- Special to the Mercury News
POSTED: 12/05/2014 02:32:24 PM PST
Ah, at last, some heavy rain. While the sunny Mediterranean climate is a significant reason many of us choose to live in the Bay Area, most of us realize we need the winter rains to fill our streams, reservoirs and aquifers and to bring our brief but beautiful May flowers. And anyone who's lived a spell in California knows that even when heavy rainfalls do end our current drought, tight water supplies are here to stay.
Sure, we can make more fresh water through desalinization and other recycling techniques, but only at an extremely high cost and with potentially harmful environmental effects. Conservation and utilization of ever more efficient technologies remains our most cost effective approach to providing our growing population with adequate supplies.
That's why the Santa Clara Valley Water District is providing subsidies (funded by ratepayers) of $2 per square foot for businesses and residents to remove water guzzling turf. And that's why the city of San Jose is committing thousands of our tax dollars to remove underused turf from our city parks. These programs will save us money in the long run and provide opportunities to landscape our parks with more interesting drought tolerant plants in areas not used for picnicking or play.
That's why it is so frustrating that the city is poised to permit 75 acres -- 3.267 million square feet -- of new turf for the Heritage Oaks Memorial Park cemetery in the undeveloped hills off McKean Road in southern San Jose. That's equivalent to 56 football fields or more than $6.5 million in Water District rebate.
Looking at it another way, the San Jose Water Company is proposing to build a new 1 million gallon water tank in the hills above New Almaden to support the needs of many residences. One million gallons is but a 10-day supply of water for this amount of turf.
We're all asked to replaced our toilets and fix leaky faucets, and rightfully so. But it will be a challenge to conserve the amount of water asked for by the proponents of this project.
The developers have planned a project based on their understanding of the traditional way we have honored the dead. But moving forward, we need to give thoughtful consideration for what is best for our survivors and descendants when we pass.
We can create demand for "green cemetery" practices -- that is, interment in peaceful settings that allow the natural cycle of life to continue for the diversity of plants and animals with whom we temporarily share this planet. We can choose landscaping with minimal disturbance to the natural environment. We can ask for old oak trees and shrubs that support native wildlife. We can ask that excavations be replanted with drought-tolerant native plants. And while many still might prefer traditional turf, the amount of the grading (flattening of the hills) and replacement of the existing natural oak savanna with turf as proposed with this project can be greatly reduced.
The San Jose City Council is scheduled to decide the nature of this important project Tuesday. Regardless of your faith and cultural traditions, I encourage you to contact your City Council member and ask that the cemetery conserves our resources with equity and protects the natural environment we all cherish.
Author bio: David Poeschel, a retired software engineer, is the Open Space Committee Chair of the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club and serves on the chapter's executive committee. He wrote this for this newspaper.