Developers Are Leaving the State High and Dry

Re “As Reservoirs Recede, Fears of a Water Shortage Rise,” Oct. 3: We drove around Palm Springs recently looking at new housing developments on 19-acre lakes. These builders are bringing in Colorado water and putting it in “lake view lots” in the middle of Rancho Mirage developments. Who is approving the use of our precious water in this way? When I asked a Realtor what would happen when the water got turned off, he laughed and said they would be dry lake beds with cactus in them.

This misuse of a precious resource is another example of the greed of California developers. Not only do they not provide adequate highways or offramps and onramps once they build, leading to congested freeways, but the state has to pick up the pieces of what the builder creates, and the state can no longer keep up. I suggest if The Times is concerned about the welfare of this state, you research the process that these builders go through to get approvals to build lakes, crowd our freeways and two-lane roads and provide nothing beyond housing tracts.

Arlene Weiner

Newport Beach