Mailbag: Water district ‘poll’ is more like desalination advocacy

The Mesa Water District survey purports to show public support for raising taxes to pay for a water desalination facility (“Residents are willing to raise taxes for desalination, water district survey finds,” Aug. 14.)

Survey, indeed! It was just a push poll, presenting as “facts” mere assumptions without a shred of supporting evidence, and the questions were overwhelmingly biased in favor of a desalination plant.

People ask why we are required to conserve water while high-density high-rise developments are springing up all over.

“Where will the water come from for all these new developments?” they ask.

Evidently, we are not running out of water, since Mesa Water continues to issue “will serve” approvals of new development projects, indicating supplies are sufficient to provide water to the projects.

Why, then, are our water district officials pushing desalination if there is enough water to meet the needs of the present population and ongoing growth?

(The conservation measures, according to the Mesa Water web site, are imposed to comply with the order of Gov. Jerry Brown requiring that all California water districts to reduce potable water deliveries by 20%.)

When I see high-density high-rise developments springing up all over town and a development as big as a medium-size city planned for the 400 acres of Banning Ranch, it seems obvious what water desalination will do. It will enable still more immense, high-density developments to enrich developers at the expense of the public and our quality of life.

We don’t need a push poll. We need information about interconnections among water officials and the businesses that depend on vast, new supplies of water.

All the directors and upper management of Mesa Water and the Orange County Water District must be required to disclose, under oath, potential conflicts of interest. The disclosures must include their political, financial and personal ties to all the developers who are building, or have applied to build, high-density developments in the Newport-Mesa area and to Poseidon, the developer of the proposed desalination plant.

Once we see interconnections, then we’ll see why desalination is being pressed upon our community.

Eleanor Egan

Costa Mesa

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Peotter resolution sets a bad precedent

The Newport Beach City Council’s approval of Mayor Pro Tem Dixon’s resolution “disassociating” the city from Councilman Scott Peotter’s email blast takes municipal code section 1.16.050 and turns it on his head.

Prior consent to use the official seal is no longer required. Henceforth, it will be permissible for anyone to use the official seal for any purpose, and the burden will be on the City Council to publish a disavowal.

Far from moving us past the controversy, Dixon’s resolution provides precedence for the city seal to be affixed to all manner of inappropriate communications.

Ralph Sims

Newport Beach