No guilt-tripping, please
Your water conservation article [“A call for shared sacrifice,” June 3] ends with a clueless question as to whether “MMWD residents … would, as a matter of social service, be willing to contribute to the wider community’s water supply well-being.” Well, actually, in 2004 MMWD customers annually used 149 gallons a day per capita; for the years 2005-2007, that number dropped to 139 gallons a day. Fast forward to June of 2014—when our residents used only 113.4 gallons daily—and from there to April of this year when that number dropped further to an amazing 78.1 gallons a day (a decrease of 31.13 percent over this nine-month period alone). Clearly, way before this drought emergency declaration, our residents unselfishly put their hearts and souls into water conservation, and will undoubtedly continue to do so.
MMWD’s residential customers tend to reject unsustainable mega-engineering boondoggles like desalination and trans-bridge pipelines—understanding full well the large financial costs of building them, the high cost of the water they would deliver, the significant energy use required to build and operate them (think global warming), and the stimulus they would inevitably provide for over-development. Instead, we’re already contributing to environmental and social well-being by reducing our demand rather than constantly increasing supply, and living within our own watershed’s natural carrying capacity for potable water so that the water supply (and everything dependent on it) can be sustainable for future generations.
Alexander Binik, Fairfax
