Letters to the Editor, Los Angeles Times, June 21, 2021.
Via Yahoo Finance:
To the editor: Lord help us in the Pacific Northwest if people in Los Angeles think like one of your letter writers who favors solving the drought by diverting water from the Columbia River through some sort of pipeline to Southern California. This idea is absurd on its face.
More importantly, the Columbia River, mighty as it once was, has been dammed beyond recognition and is also affected by climate change. Longtime native Oregonians recognize the dramatically receding flow of the river, the many exposed sandbars, the dead fish and the mile-long walk to reach the water in the Portland area.
There are innumerable cities, towns and communities that depend on the Columbia River for their livelihood and electricity. Portland is a "deep water" port some 100 miles up river from the mouth and the Pacific Ocean. Tens of thousands of cars, trucks and other vehicles arrive here from Asia via the Columbia.
California needs to drastically start conserving more and generating new ideas for quenching the thirst of its almost 40 million people. The Columbia River and its tributaries are already tapped to the maximum to meet the needs of the region and much of the rest of the western U.S.
Roger Baron, Portland, Ore.
*****
To the editor: One letter writer thinks William Mulholland was a visionary because he built the aqueduct from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles more than 100 years ago.
Before then, the Owens Valley was an agricultural paradise. Then Mulholland stole its water and turned it into a dust bowl. You can see for yourself driving up Highway 395....
....MORE
Ah yes, Mr. Mulholland. We should maybe do a post on "Chinatown" and the California Water Wars.
If interested see also last week's mini-rant on California and the ongoing drought:
Agricultural Commodities: Whither the Weather
And our disagreement with the premise of "Why Wall Street investors’ trading California water futures is nothing to fear – and unlikely to work anyway":
I don't know. Anything that normalizes the commodification of water, that, rather than exalting it as a giver of life (and one of the weirdest compounds in the universe) reduces it to just another thing to trade, brings us closer to the day when pure power politics forces the U.S. to drain the Great Lakes just to keep Phoenix and Las Vegas and Los Angeles going.
Or something....
