Ok, mowing your roof does not sound like a fun way of spending your weekend.
I personally don’t think it would be a good usage of our rain water either. While I applaud Mayor Chavez for trying to find ways to make Albuquerque a more
environmentally friendly city, the cold hard fact is that we live in the high desert and should take that into consideration when we look at ways to improve or protect our environment and reduce our energy usage. I think that Mayor Chavez should look at talking with the New Mexico First group to see if they could hold a town hall meeting here in Albuquerque to work on ways to make Albuquerque a more environmentally friendly city and still have an effective usage of our limited water supplies and reduce the usage of energy in the city. I have also heard that the University of New Mexico is working on ways to reduce their energy usage and are rewarding the program that is doing that with a percentage of the savings.
I personally live in an apartment complex so that I don’t have to mow a lawn or clean my own pool. I have replaced all of my light bulbs with the more energy efficient ones. I drive a subcompact car.
Mayor Martin Chavez should look into using the money he can raise to encourage city residents and businesses to collect rain water from roofs in the City of Albuquerque. They can then use the water to reduce the usage of city water when watering the Xeriscape that they have planted. It takes many intelligent people to come up with ways to save energy, save water and protect our environment while still living within the restrictions that our city has to offer but a stupid man can always take a swipe at our Mayor with no constructive alternatives to offer in reply. Our Mayor’s faults may include the problem of knowing how to build positive community involvement but he is still trying to care about our city’s environment and energy usage which is more than can be said about some of the people who are criticizing him for his approach.
If you have ever watched the water run off the roofs of an apartment complex or any other large building in this city you know how much water could be collected to be reused in watering the landscape around one of those buildings or complexes. Roof water collection might also reduce the flooding of our streets that we see when this city has one of its few hard rain storms during the year.
I am not an expert in the field of energy efficiency but here are just a few ways that I could think up to reduce the use of water, increase energy efficiency and still protect our environment at the same time. I am sure that if we could get the right people together that they could come up with many more ways to make Albuquerque an environmentally friendly city.
1. Use rain water collection systems in conjunction with Xeriscaping to reduce the amount of water used for landscape.
2. Encourage people with rebates to replace old outdated sprinkler systems with drip irrigation.
3.Replace grass lawns with Xeriscape. Give businesses and owners of old apartment complexes rebates to convert grass lawns to Xeriscape.
4. Encourage people with the higher incomes to develop Xeriscape roofs in conjunction with rain water collection systems.
5. Find the money to help owners of old apartment complexes, middle income home owners and low income home owners to make their units more energy efficient.
6. Help apartment dwellers and low income home owners to replace old style light bulbs with the new more energy efficient ones.
7. Use the community centers in our neighborhoods to give classes on how to best save energy. People could be reward for attending these classes with prizes that gave them assistance in making their businesses, homes and apartments more energy efficient.
8. Encourage colleges and universities in the Albuquerque area to help local communities and businesses to develop energy saving plans. The plans could save energy and reduce the cost of energy to home owners, business owners, and apartment residents.
If the city as a whole is willing to work together to save energy and reduce the usage of water it can and will work.
