Letters to the Editor: California needs desalination, but not this O.C. desalination plant

To the editor: With the Pacific Ocean lapping at our doorstep, it is hard for Californians to believe we are unable to abate our constant water woes by tapping into its seemingly endless supply. Just a little tweaking and, presto, aqua pura forever.

As always, the devil is in the details. And from what columnist Steve Lopez has written, there are plenty of devils working to make us pay to slake our thirst.

Yes, we need the water. What we don’t need is profiteers, foreign or domestic, cashing in on our dilemma. Surely, the governor can find a California visionary or visionaries who can be tasked with bringing us potable water from the sea.

As for the “housing crisis” taking precedent over building a desalination plant in part with public funds, without a predictable, dependable water supply, that argument won’t hold water.

Nicholas Lewis, Los Angeles

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To the editor: We could just conserve water. What a quaint thought.

Stop watering our lawns (we’re in a semi-arid climate, after all). Landscape with native plants. Washing cars is Sisyphean task.

We are smarter than the plan to construct a desalination plant in Orange County at huge cost, with significant environmental damage and with the profit flowing to a Canadian company.

Alison M. Grimes, Yorba Linda