Residents Grapple With the Drought
Your story on the continuing drought and its threat to our lifestyles stressed conservation by urban and suburban users. You failed to mention California’s scandalous agricultural water waste. Where federal and state subsidies (that’s us) deliver water to agribusiness at 1/100 of the unit cost the rest of us pay, there is only incentive to waste.
Daytime above-ground sprinkling wastes 25% of its output through evaporation, overflowing irrigation ditches and leaking pipes are more costly to fix than the water they lose and, worst of all, water-greedy crops we don’t need soak up the water that the rest of us require. Cotton, for example, in surplus supply and inedible, grows nicely, thank you, in locales, like the American South, where natural rainfall is sufficient. But in California we pour out enough water for this crop alone to meet the needs of 20,000,000 Californians.
Conservation programs will be credible and supported by the public only if they are evenhanded. Agribusiness must do its share.
MICHAEL W. DUNN
Claremont
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