Cost of Reducing Chloride Levels

Re “Water Customers Face Costly Low-Salt Diet,” Jan. 15.

I read with some interest and a lot of irritation your article on how much my water bill is going to go up because we are going to be required to subsidize agriculture in the county a little more.

Water rates in Ventura County are already based, among other things, on the size of your water meter; the larger your meter is the lower the rate you pay for your water. Who has those big water meters? Not the homeowners! But the agricultural users do have some of those 6- and 8-inch meters.

Your article indicates that we have to lower the chloride content in our water to protect the avocado industry. What it boils down to is that we need to pay higher water bills so that the agricultural users can continue to sell at a competitive price and make a profit. We will be subsidizing both the growers and the people all over the world who will be paying lower prices for produce, because we are paying part of the bill for growing that avocado or strawberry or “designer” lettuce.

Many of our local “farmers” say they are being driven out of business anyway, so why doesn’t Ventura County cut to reality and accept the fact that, regardless of SOAR [Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources] or any open-space initiatives, we are a suburb of Los Angeles. That “farmland” will be developed and the huge capital expenditure to “improve crop yields” will have been totally pumped down the “brine line” in a very few years when the main crop in Ventura County is houses.

LYNNE OWENS

Moorpark

*

Once more we are being asked to subsidize agriculture in the area, this time by virtue of the proposal to add $20 to $80 a month to our water and sewage bill.

Farmers already receive a lower rate for their water; why should I pay to provide additional support for their businesses? Their business is in the world market and by suggesting that I pay some of the costs, I am being asked to subsidize someone else’s purchase.

Farming is a business, and few private businesses receive the support of the public, property owners in particular.

Should I decide that circumstances and costs of doing business will not allow me to make enough money, will somebody determine that the local property owners should pay to support my business? It is far more likely, that I would be forced to close my business or go into bankruptcy.

No, thank you. My taxes and water bills are high enough. I don’t propose to work at my business in order to support someone else’s.

COLIN VELAZQUEZ

Moorpark

*

The bill for desalinization of water for the benefit of farmers in the area is predicted to be $20 to $80 a month. The determination was made that the household income in Simi Valley and Moorpark is sufficiently high for that amount.

This is to provide treated water at the sewage processing plant. A more practical alternative would be for farmers to treat the water at the location of use.

There is no way to look at this but that it is an additional fee or tax burden for the homeowner. Further, the fee is proposed to be established by the decree of a bureaucratic body operating outside the election process. It would be more in keeping with the laws and the philosophy of our governing system to ask the already-burdened homeowners whether they deem this an acceptable tax.

The benefit of this project accrues to the farmers and would, presumably, allow them to better compete in the marketplace. But the farmers already have a lower water rate; this measure forces property owners to subsidize the world market.

There is to be a public hearing on this issue (tentative date March 22). I urge you to make your opinion known at the hearing, to your representatives and the operators of your local water district.

ELOISE BROWN

Moorpark