Water woes

[Editor’s note:?The following letter was addressed to Golden State Water Company, with a copy forwarded for publication. —KD]

Dear Editor:

I have just received the Important Drought Notice and am very upset. I have lived in Claremont since August 1931 and my wife has lived here since January 1946, when we were married. When my family arrived in 1931, it was impressed upon us then that water was not abundant.?In “special condition,” item 6 of your Important Drought Notice, we have never violated any of these things:

(a) We never let water “run off,” (b) we never wash our cars. We park them outside when it rains, (c) Never, (d) Never, (e) We wait at least a week, (f) We’ve had you check; there are no leaks (and I check regularly), (g) through (m) are not applicable.

Furthermore, we have never let the water run while brushing teeth or shaving (why would you?). We do not flush toilets for every use. We run very full loads in our dishwasher. Our front-loading clothes washer can tell the size of the load and uses just enough water to wash the load. We are both 90 years old and take two showers a week; we don’t get dirty or sweat much. We turn on a dribble, soap up and turn it up harder to rinse off.

We have no lawn. We have cactus, native plants, palm trees, an olive tree and a few fruit trees. We’ve been running our automatic sprinklers for 15 minutes every three days, except when weather is moist or cool, then we turn them off. Running them Monday and Thursday in the middle of the night should be no problem; however, that is only about a 10 percent cut-back on that one item.

To sum up: We’ve been using as little water as possible forever, including in 2013.

We have a grandson, his wife and their 5-year-old and 2-year-old living with us. They also have been trying to conserve water. I have a medical situation that requires maybe 10 gallons of water a day, and there is no way I can reduce this.

The whole thing is grossly unfair to those of us who have never wasted water. Cutting back 32 percent will be impossible. The result to us, a couple of 90-year-old retired school teachers, will be even more outrageous water bills.

People that have been over-using water may be able to cut back without penalties. Not fair. And the wealthy won’t care. Also not fair. Is there any way we can be cut some slack?

Chet and Eileen Jaeger

Claremont

Seizing an alternative

Dear Editor:

The planet is getting warmer and the effects are already upon us. “Seizing an Alternative,” the international conference held at Pomona College last weekend, engaged over 1500 people from around the world in addressing the growing dilemma.

There is a simple and effective way to make a significant cut in greenhouse gases that is endorsed by climate scientists, economists and politicians from both sides of the aisle: a carbon fee and dividend. Place a slowly-rising fee on carbon fuels, returning all money collected to American families. Any rising commodity costs such as fuel and plastic are offset by the returned cash. That way, clean energy becomes even more competitive and we can break our fossil fuel habit.

We need the planet to survive and prosper if we are to survive and prosper!

Dave Lutz

Claremont