This little boy already missed out on driving through Main Street on grandpa’s lap, but guess what he’ll miss out on now? Well, if he lives in Fairfax, California he may miss out on washing the family car. While he might not complain about it, a recent proposition might have him sipping an over-sweetened coffee flavored slushy while he and grandpa are forced to pay somebody else to perform the soapy labor (at least that’s what I see going on when you pay to have somebody wash your car).
Anyhow, here’s the full story as reported from KGO on October 1st, 2007. This one will have you asking… What’s next?
For all the big debates about the environment and global warming, there are small ones, as well. Consider the town of Fairfax in Marin County. Residents are looking hard at a proposal some say violates a basic right — to wash your car in your front yard.
It is the kind of environmental debate you’re likely to find only in a mostly affluent community.
One resident asks, “do you save the fish or wash your car?”
It’s the debate du jour in Marin County’s Fairfax. There’s a town council proposal to ban residents from washing their cars in front of their houses, for fear of what the runoff may do to fish in their creeks, and downstream in the ocean.
“I think that the spirit of the ordinance is a good one,” says Lew Tremaine with the Fairfax town council.
“Well we have a strategic plan that has been intended to make sure that we go green as fast as we can on a lot of levels. This is just another one of those levels,” says Vice Mayor Mary-Ann Maggiore.
Fairfax has already banned pesticides, styrofoam and plastic bags. This ordinance would empower police to write tickets in extreme cases.
“They would probably just issue them a warning and that would be an opportunity to educate the person,” says Lindy Kelly, town manager.
In reality, most parties expect some kind of compromise like biodegradable soaps, for instance. However, those would not spare the environment from all the all other stuff soap would remove, and the nearest full-service car wash is three miles down the road in San Rafael.
A car wash is a closed system. All the soap, all the grime, goes into a drain and then it’s reused.
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