STEFFEN MCKERNAN, San Clemente
A few articles about desalination have been published in the Dana Point Times. The most recent is a mention by San Clemente Councilmember Knoblock in a San Clemente Times column.
Desalination is the wrong idea for water. It is expensive and energy-intensive. And it is more environmentally damaging than most other forms.
California has plenty of water. Agribarons use 80% of our developed water for less than 1.5% of our GDP. Alfalfa is less than 0.01% of California’s GDP and uses more water than all homes combined.
Alfalfa is only grown here, because those businesses pay one-thousandth of the water price a homeowner pays. California water in alfalfa form is shipped to China and Saudi Arabia.
Agribusiness has the water we need to all have lush, carbon-capturing lawns maintained by entrepreneurial gardeners.
Those gardeners will produce far more GDP and goodness than our alfalfa crop. We just need our government to fix the water market.
