Water Crisis

If Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf ran San Diego, he would fire the mayor, City Council and Board of Supervisors for stupidity in the face of a water shortage. He would send the planners back to recruit training school for failure to provide services. He would court-martial the water boards for dereliction of duty and order the new boards to go out and get us some emergency water.

I am one of those tens of thousands of good citizens who let their lawn die back last summer. I am one of the million and a half good citizens who conserved and saved. We did all those good things Helix water district asked us to do. My home used 47% less water in 1990 than the previous year. We are active people. We have lots of guests. We still take two or three showers a day, and not always together. What happened to the water we saved last summer? If Helix didn’t get it, where did it go? Who used it? Why was it not used to help fill the reservoirs? Why was most of the rainfall wasted?

Why do I see new golf courses, new housing developments, new shopping malls, and 70,000 new faces moving into San Diego in each of the third, fourth and fifth year of our drought? Why are farmers told to cut back and not feed me?

Is this my reward for saving water?

What San Diego really needs is not Draconian rationing and restrictions, not someone to tell me how I can use my fair share of the water, not the 70,000 new faces that move to San Diego each year, but a few new faces in government and all new faces on the water boards.

MORT BRIGADIER, Spring Valley