Turn Off the Tap

In 1991 the voters of this region bought into the State Water Project (SWP), and our responsible officials assumed we now had plenty of water and could continue to allocate more water usage. This has exacerbated the current water crisis. Droughts are a fact of life in this region, and the SWP is not a reliable water supply in a drought; ergo, the SWP was never a solution to our water problems. (The problem is that we want to use more water than we have.)

Nonetheless, our region’s officials continued to permit 25 years of development. End result: we use more water than we can depend on having in a drought, and we keep increasing our rate of usage.

This is not so surprising if you consider the extent to which we allow money to run our affairs. The SWP was always a bad idea promoted by people who stood to make lots of money from it. Maybe we can thank our representatives for falling asleep at the wheel and exacerbating this disaster. I know I’m going encourage them not to continue to do so.