Readers React: The unfresh, water-hogging prince of Bel-Air

To the editor: Steve Lopez has been hoofing it all over Los Angeles for years, painting insightful word portraits of the idiosyncrasies of life in Southern California. (“Untouched by drought,” Column, Oct. 7) In my view, he nearly always gets it right.

In this column, he does it again.

His search for the No. 1 residential water user in California — who lives, apparently, in some walled fortress in Bel-Air consuming 1,300 gallons of water an hour — highlights the rampant increase in wealth inequality we have seen nationwide over the last three decades.

Too many of the wealthy live their profligate, high-consumption lifestyles isolated from the rest of us and devoid of even a modicum of social conscience.

Roger Gloss, Rancho Santa Margarita

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To the editor: Lopez’s column made my blood boil.

I am one of millions of Californians who have reduced my water usage.

At my house, I turn off the shower when soaping, I turn off the tap when brushing my teeth.

I do shorter, fuller loads of laundry and of course, I am letting the lawn turn brown.

Then when you see someone like the person in Bel-Air getting away with such blatant water usage, I, like most of your readers, am thinking:

“Why should I bother?”

Steve Bachman, Costa Mesa

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To the editor: I always enjoy reading Lopez, including his recent column on the unknown Bel-Air water guzzler in which he ends by asking readers to “drop a dime” and identify the amazing water user.

However, I wonder how many readers understood his request, which was based on a 10-cent pay-phone call that disappeared decades ago.

The idea of inserting (or dropping) a dime in a pay phone to make a call to anonymously tip off authorities to the identity of an evildoer may not register with a lot of readers — but it is the kind of literary imagery that makes reading Lopez so entertaining.

Charles M. Weisenberg, Beverly Hills

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To the editor: Anyone who can afford to buy an estate costing more than $100 million can also afford (and should be required to provide) a rainwater cistern and gray water system.

Also, off-grid solar power and LEED-compliant building materials.

Plus a hefty fee for a low-income-housing construction fund.

Linda Kranen, Carlsbad

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To the editor: I routinely chastise our teenage daughters for taking 20-minute showers.

Then, I read about the Bel-Air water usage, including a single resident apparently using 1,300 gallons per hour.

Girls, I apologize.

Konrad Moore, Bakersfield

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