Letters: We’re Trying To Conserve Water… Are You?
Editor;
I’m hopeful my fellow Contra Costans are aware of the fact that we are rapidly approaching a critical water shortage and that if we do not succeed in this statewide water restrictions may be needed.
We are showering less, running our dish and clothes washers less, flushing less frequently and hoping our neighbors are doing the same.
But I’m not so sure.
Sincerely,
Rafael Cisneros/Brentwood
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We’re cutting bacck on showers and other high usage options – but the neighbors are beginning to avoid us.
We have cut back some but only because of concern about future water bills, not because of any social consciousness. Residential water use is only 10 to 20 percent of total, so I am not impressed with politicians trying to shame and threaten us into using less water so they can support the almond and other water intensive agricultural industries, effectively exporting our scarce water to China. Who uses more water, you or Gov. Newsom with his winery? What is particularly devastating for the politician’s credibility is how they are encouraging a large increase in housing units here even while trying to shame us over limited resources such as water.
Good points!
I’ve been conserving water since the big drought of the late seventies when I was a boy. I’ve been practicing those water saving tips ever since. The trouble is now we’re shamed if we slightly go over are already meager usage. I plan to let the lawn die I’ve got to keep some of the mature plants semi alive until winter at least. I am tired of the shaming and guilt put on us when I’ve been a water saver all along!
I will continue to water my California sized (postage stamp) lawns with low flow heads, take a shower 3 times a week and wash my cars when needed. I will not be held responsible for my tax dollars wasted on pet projects and political payoffs instead of building reservoirs.
Oh yeah, that’ll show the bigwigs in Sacramento.
I have nothing to prove. Just business as usual.
Sure we are doing are best.
On the other side of the equation, has our state government invested anything in long term solutions like building reservoirs, recycled water programs or desalination projects ? Or have our politicians taken money from special interest groups that motivated them to do nothing proactive in these areas for 30 years?
This is NOT a democracy. I lived the middle class of the Golden Age of the Golden State. I lived it! Now, I’m just drinking more champagne and watching the sun set.
As Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, 1776, would remind us, social consciousness is overrated. Our individual economic self-interest, our individual economic choices better determine not only better outcomes for ourselves, but for society. Now whom shall we place in charge of water resources? Whom shall we purchase in the Senate toward that goal? By “we”, of course, I mean we, white whales, er, white males. If we have learned anything in 250 years, it is that there is nothing inherently democratic, nothing to be imagined as democratic in the purchased Congress of the United States, and certainly not in the Senate which is anti-democratic in its very constitution. More champagne please. My father’s generation built the reservoirs for my generation. Then some players became more equal than others. Now it’s not just the savages and the slaves and the women who have no place at the table; now, we have met the enemy and he is us. More champagne please.
Just grey watered the garden.
It gets serious today.
Does peeing on the lawn count?
Bad for the grass…
There is no shortage of water. There is, however, a shortage of brains in Sacramento. We have been asked to conserve water almost every year in memory and we rise (or restrict) to the occasion. We authorized $7.5 BILLION in 2014 to build reservoirs. What has it gotten us? Absolutely nothing! No dams have been built, or even planned to be built, and our water bills are higher than ever. Why wouldn’t they be? We’re stupid enough keep paying them more for less. We’ve trained the dog to pee on the carpet. It’s time to pull that dirty carpet out from underneath Gavin.