Thank you for your excellent coverage of recent water problems in North and South County. When I moved here 30 years ago, it was soon apparent that the county is like a sagging mattress held up in the middle with both ends dragging.
The fact that Nipomo voters were short-sighted and failed to opt-in to the state water project is no surprise (“Water wars,” Nov. 24). They saved a little then and pay a lot now. Folks in Paso Robles elected city leaders who turned the east side of the river into Little Orange County. No one bothered to seriously limit growth to the available resources, i.e. water and sewer capacity.
Does this surprise anyone? Most residents can’t even pronounce the Spanish word for tree correctly! “Robles” is pronounced by locals as either “robo” or “rubles.” Perhaps “rubles” is appropriate, as a City Council controlled by developer interests is as seemingly corrupt as the one that rules Russia today.
This article appears in Dec 1-8, 2011.