‘Scientists See Stark Future for Mono Lake’

Cheers for your Mono Lake stand! I certainly agree that the water diversion process from the area needs major changes. Not only is it destroying a priceless environment, but it doesn’t solve the problem it only postpones it. But the widely endorsed solution (diverted northern delta water) is at least as bad and probably worse.

It makes at least three fundamentally incorrect assumptions: 1. that it will solve the problem--with the Southland’s annual growth rate at over 13%, it will serve only as a reprieve; 2. that it won’t harm the environment--numerous scientific projections indicate just the opposite with marine biology in the delta region and San Francisco Bay being directly affected; 3. that the northern part of the state won’t need additional water resources--while it certainly doesn’t have the south’s magnitude of population influx, it’s still coping with a 6%-plus annual growth rate.

Southern California needs self-dependency and desalination plants would give just that. There are currently over 2,500 plants in successful world-wide operation. Expensive yes, but then that’s the price you should pay to live in the desert.

The only thing we do not need is more so called “solutions” devised by questionably motivated political appointees whose vision of the future is limited to a term of office. Do we solve the problem now or hand our children an expanded version along with a plundered environment?

BARRY D. CUNNINGHAM

El Segundo