Editor,
Are we living in two different worlds with water? One world is the water world that includes our homes, the other is the water world of commercial and residential development. The current drought may require reductions of use and fines for exceeding limits.
But, someone in Brisbane or some Los Angeles corporate oligarch wants to build a huge development near the transportation corridor in that bucolic community. But Brisbane doesn’t currently have enough water for the development. One solution explored was buying water rights from Palo Alto, a city that owns more rights to water than current usage. A Brisbane development would create thousands of jobs necessitating state mandates to build more housing. But wait, how will getting “water rights” actually bring more water or will more commercial and residential development actually make the water shortage more acute? Perhaps that is not an important issue for the developers, most likely they don’t live here. But what about the residents on the Peninsula who are being packed with new development in an era of diminishing water supply? Can the new developments be constructed without landscaping, sinks and toilets, without research labs that use lots of water? “Water rights” don’t create more water. I’m sure more learned water users will point out where I am mistaken, but I’m not sure anyone can convince me that in a time of water shortage, it’s okay to develop new water users. The two water worlds don’t seem to mix together very well.
Gary Dilley
Redwood City
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(1) comment
You don't get it - only 10% of our water goes to residential use and of that less that .1% goes to new residential an office development. The increased tax revenues from the new building would more than pay for desalination and more water supply. The problem is that almost none of Porp 101 passed in 2014 to increase our water supply has been spent. Politicians are thwarting the will of the people by sitting on this money as they line their political coffers with money from both sides of the issue.
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