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August 08, 2008
View From Lodi, CA Pittsburgh, PA: Water, Water, Everywhere—In PA, That Is
By Joe Guzzardi
After
two weeks in Pittsburgh, PA one thing stands out:
everything is green.
All around me—the trees, grass and rolling hills—is
magnificently lush. In June,
Pittsburgh had a record rainfall. And through
August, there’s been just enough rain to keep things
verdant.
Here in Pennsylvania, we’re not worried about water. We
we’re not choking on the smoky air that’s engulfed
northern California for most of the summer.
Californians will most certainly be paying more for
water in the near future. And before too many more years
pass, save for the possibility of a series of major
winter storms,
your access to water will be rationed.
Not us, though. We’ve got plenty.
Driving away from California and crossing through the
western part of Nevada, a gray haze followed us. But by
the time we got to
Utah, skies cleared. Then in
Nebraska, the rain started. And it continued through
Iowa,
Illinois,
Indiana,
Ohio and then followed us into
Pennsylvania.
To be sure, listening to heavy rain while you are curled
up in your bed at night is peaceful. But it is an
altogether nerve-rattling experience if you are
negotiating heavy interstate traffic.
Nevertheless, the rain is refreshing. I’ve lived in
Puerto Rico and
Seattle so I am no stranger to it.
Water, or the lack of it, is an increasingly hot
topic in California politics.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger would like to dupe
Californians into voting for a
$9.3 billion bond issue that he
proposes by using the typical politicians scare
language like “the state is in a crisis,”
predicting that another dry season would be
“devastating” and, my favorite, “What is needed
is a comprehensive, statewide plan—and we must move
swiftly.”[Turning
the Tide in the Water Crisis, By Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Dianne Feinstein, Los Angeles
Times, July 31, 2008]
I’m all for a comprehensive plan. The problem is that
Schwarzenegger, and all the state’s
other elected officials, want only to put forward a
partial plan that depends exclusively on your money but
not at all on sound government policy.
Here’s what I mean. It’s really very simple.
People use water. The
more people who live in the state, the more water
will be
consumed.
Currently, California’s population is 38 million, the
nation’s largest.
Ten years ago, in what now seems like the good old days,
demographers projected that by 2050 California would
have 50 million residents.
But today, that’s
just wishful thinking.
According to California’s Department of Finance, the
state’s inhabitants will exceed 50 million by 2032 and
reach
60 million by 2050—an upward adjustment of 10
million!
Applying the same percentage increase to
Lodi means that the city’s 2060 population will be
about 95,000 people. In
San Joaquin County, more than a million will be
struggling over increasingly scarce resources.
The greatest population growth will occur in Los Angeles
and San Bernardino Counties, already the state’s densest
areas where the least rain falls.
Good luck to you all.
If
Schwarzenegger were as serious as he claims about “a
comprehensive solution”, he would address
California’s population as it impacts water usage. And
any analysis of people and water has to include the
approximately
300, 000 illegal aliens who arrive in the state each
year.
Obviously,
they drink water, shower, cook and wash their cars. And
while
enlightened and
environmentally aware Californians try to limit
their water consumption, that may not be the case with
aliens, who might not be either as
aware or as concerned.
Nevertheless, Schwarzenegger insists that it would be a
“big mistake” to
blame illegal immigrants for any part of
California’s $15 billion budget deficit or its water
crisis.
One is
left to conclude that Schwarzenegger would argue that
aliens don’t
consume water.
If
Schwarzenegger’s bond proposal reaches the ballot, I
urge all Californians to reject it. The measure would
only impose additional taxes on an already over-taxed
state.
Like the
school bonds that many Californians have
foolishly voted for over the years that
have not ended the school shortage, a water bond
represents only a partial solution.
The
underlying problem is population. Too many people
will always mean
too few schools and too little water.
Cut
Schwarzenegger off at the pass. Write to him to demand
that he order a comprehensive evaluation of California’s
social woes that includes an honest analysis of
illegal immigration’s impact on the state budget
deficit and its water shortage.
Joe Guzzardi
[email
him]
is a California native who recently fled the state
because of over-immigration, over-population and a
rapidly deteriorating quality of life. He has moved to
Pittsburgh, PA where the air is clean and the growth
rate stable.
A long-time instructor in English at the Lodi Adult School,
Guzzardi has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It
currently appears in the
Lodi News-Sentinel.
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