Letters written by David Altscher, Robert Nice and Gary Dilley in the March 22 edition seem to have hit the nail on the head. The state is in the third year of severe drought with no end in site and yet elected officials continue to approve housing and commercial developments. In South San Francisco, our RHNA numbers for housing are just under 4,000 units, this, I assume would include the 1,000 units proposed by James Coleman and the public housing proposal by the City Council. Residents and myself have asked where will the water come from? With the drought, how can there be enough hydropower to generate the electricity needed for these developments? I was recently told by a local officials that we have plenty of water ... where is it?
Rich - there is sufficient water for all residents. The problem is that agriculture is taking most of it under legacy water rights. Now, if that water was all used to feed us that is one thing but a portion is wasted on proliferating almond groves and probably on the ever expanding wine grape acreage. Particularly almonds require intensive irrigation. Why do we see almond milk in the supermarkets? Making milk from almonds? Does that suggest there is a surplus of almonds that cannot be sold other wise? Why plant more trees instead of cutting them down? Money? Residential customers use less than 10% of California's water, so why are we asked to conserve?
Actually, Mr. Garbarino, CA has plenty of water. It’s just that 50% of the water is sent flowing out to sea to save non-existent fish. If we instead flushed 40% of water to sea, we’d double the allotment for us little people. That’s the reason I don’t bother with conserving water and probably the reason developers and localities continue building, as that’s the ace up their sleeve. Now for this all-electric thing, that’s a bigger issue as there are no aces to create magic electricity, only fossil fuels.
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(2) comments
Rich - there is sufficient water for all residents. The problem is that agriculture is taking most of it under legacy water rights. Now, if that water was all used to feed us that is one thing but a portion is wasted on proliferating almond groves and probably on the ever expanding wine grape acreage. Particularly almonds require intensive irrigation. Why do we see almond milk in the supermarkets? Making milk from almonds? Does that suggest there is a surplus of almonds that cannot be sold other wise? Why plant more trees instead of cutting them down? Money? Residential customers use less than 10% of California's water, so why are we asked to conserve?
Actually, Mr. Garbarino, CA has plenty of water. It’s just that 50% of the water is sent flowing out to sea to save non-existent fish. If we instead flushed 40% of water to sea, we’d double the allotment for us little people. That’s the reason I don’t bother with conserving water and probably the reason developers and localities continue building, as that’s the ace up their sleeve. Now for this all-electric thing, that’s a bigger issue as there are no aces to create magic electricity, only fossil fuels.
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Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
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