The Environment and Water Needs

The article by Reisner contains several misstatements with which we take issue. Its most serious flaw is that it would have us believe we are in the midst of a crisis and that the crisis has precipitated a war in which north is pitted against south, urban against rural.

Reisner starts with the old contention that “too much water is already being diverted” from the San Francisco Bay/Delta and that we are witnessing the rape of that “great, priceless estuary.”

The alleged environmental catastrophe in San Francisco Bay is a figment of Reisner’s imagination. As for the Delta, it has some problems, but those problems are entirely solvable. The irony is that Reisner’s “solution” would do little to help the Delta and would do nothing about such growing problems as drinking water quality for Southern California.

More and more, it is becoming clear that we aren’t facing a crisis of shortage as much as we are a crisis of logic. Objective water experts know that there is more than enough water to serve all reasonable demands of Californians, both urban and rural, for the foreseeable future. We have an average surface runoff of 75 million acre-feet per year. Six percent of that water is used by cities and industry; 31% is used by agriculture; 63% remains in our rivers and streams. No one is advocating a wholesale expansion of our water development system, but with improvements in our existing system we can solve many environmental problems while continuing to meet the needs of cities and farms.

STEPHEN K. HALL

Executive Director

California Farm Water Coalition

Fresno