Response to letter about California water crisis
In your May 7th edition, Harriet Vaughn commented on how water shortages in California may be exacerbated by the Endangered Species Act and have local effects here. Her reference was from a report … aired on Fox News. As in some reports on Fox News, the story was exaggerated and distorted to match the opinions of the network.
Yes, water continues to be diverted from agriculture to a river feeding the San Joaquin estuary. Yes, there is an endangered fish species, once abundant and commercially valuable, which is near extinction.
She overemphasizes that there is only “ONE” individual of this fish left, rather the last sampling found six individuals (a sample, not an absolute number). Biologists do agree that the fish is near extinction.
What she doesn’t mention is that usage of the Endangered Species Act is done to protect endangered ecosystems because there is no Endangered Ecosystems Act. Endangered species have sometimes become tools to provide broader protections for ecosystems that have been negatively affected by various polluting human activities.
These systems, especially estuaries, have been commercially valuable breeding grounds for economically important fisheries. When they are overly polluted or when their salinities are radically changed by reduced freshwater input, they lose their economic value as well as losing their biological diversity.
Fights over limited water supplies in California have been going on for years as there are too many needs and not enough water for cities, agriculture, and natural ecosystems. With the increasingly intense drought, each of these needs is being squeezed tighter and tighter.
Ms. Vaughn does not seem to realize that water going to natural ecosystems is not just for one species of fish but to stave off any further collapse of the ecosystem. Thus, from an environmental standpoint, agriculture should be shifting to crops requiring less water, and cities should be instituting severely restrictive measures on domestic and industrial water usage before already limited water supplies are completely cut off from stressed and degraded ecosystems. Certainly, our costs for food will go up as California agriculture continues to suffer from the drought regardless of whether or not there is diversion for environmental preservation. However, it strikes me as irresponsible to claim a cost of $1.5 billion dollars to consumers without acknowledging the bigger picture of the situation.
Bill Parker
West Point
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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