Letters to the editor: Finding the right water policies; wind power and energy
Collaborate on water solutions
The solutions we have grappled with for decades relative to California’s water crisis have centered on conservation, regulation and innovation. However, strong advocacy by politically savvy groups for their favorite one of the three approaches has been accompanied by the group’s opposition to the other two.
Sadly, this has resulted in a dysfunctional stalemate on any real progress to a long-term solution.
Hopefully, the current level of crisis might produce an awareness that all three of these tools will be needed in thoughtful combination to meet the challenge of our drought.
And we need, in particular, to avoid the current tendency to over stipulate sacrifices in residential landscape use (conservation) while closing our eyes to the need to innovate and regulate as well.
A recent UC study (Pittinger and Hodel) found that residential landscape accounts for about 3.5% of our state’s water use. Undoubtedly, we can and must be better stewards of our water in gardens, backyards and recreational areas. But even great reductions in this 3.5% of water use will not put a dent in the larger issue and a less than thoughtful set of new water policies for residential landscape could fundamentally change the quality of life in our communities for years to come.
As we take responsible action to save water in residential landscape, let’s take equally reasonable actions to find innovative ways to reclaim water and to oversee and regulate the agricultural and development sectors which impact the greatest percent of water use in the state.
Robert Fraisse, Newbury Park
Understanding units of energy
Re: Terry Tamminen’s Aug. 3 guest column, “Amping up offshore wind power”:
Just read the column on wind energy. It’s totally without understanding the units of energy. The important value is not gigawatts, power, but gigawatt hours per year, energy. Twenty gigawatts is a meaningless number. It’s like saying you have a 500 Hp car in the garage but so what if you never take it out?
Look at the wind generators near Mojave. If you added up their kilowatt potential it would sound impressive but if they are not turning, like most of the time, they are worthless. Ultimately, we need nuclear power plants, which generate power 24/7, like Bill Gates’ Terra Power has designed and one is being built in Wyoming.
Paul Lux, Thousand Oaks
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Letters: Finding the right water policies; wind power and energy
