David Ablett: People must conserve water to grow nuts

Re “Is there enough water for people and nuts?” (Opinions, Oct. 28): Community columnist Claudia Newcorn posted this article questioning whether people and nuts can co-exist. Depends on how much sacrifice and imagination people are willing to invest.

The article in The Bee on Monday, Nov. 3 (“Research predicts state’s droughts will get worse,” Page B1) says that things can be expected to get a lot worse before they get better. That dictates patience and cooperation like we have never seen before.

Know this for sure, though, there is a finite limit to the amount of water we can ever receive. We can conserve to that limit and no more. After that, new sources have to be found or created. We should be investing as much in desalination as a state as we are in conservation.

At the same time we need to heed the warnings of NASA and NOAA. They predict that by the end of this century our sea level will rise by 13 feet at mean high tide worldwide. That’s a potential problem not even being considered.

This story was originally published November 4, 2014 at 4:51 PM with the headline "David Ablett: People must conserve water to grow nuts."