My husband has been threatening to file a protest against the water-rate hike.

The other day, when he was scraping white mineral deposits off the dish drainer and complaining about it, I suggested to him that he might be happier paying for Sacramento River water.

I suppose it’s possible that Davis groundwater is fine for human health, but it tastes nasty, ruins plumbing fixtures and kills plants. I suggest that people who want to pay less not more for water should put their energy into water conservation rather than protesting the rate hikes. Take shorter showers, and turn the water off while you shampoo your hair. Drain your hot tub. Replace the emerald green golf course in your front yard with native plants. Recycle water: I remember my mom watering her front yard flowers with dish water during the drought in the 1970s in the Bay Area.

It’s too bad that raising water rates (as happened during the 1970s drought) is probably the best way to get people to conserve water, but we will all be better off, facing a future of climate change, if we learn how to get by on less. The water-rate structure should be designed to help us do so, ideally rewarding households financially that use less than the base amount of water per month.

I probably can’t stop my husband, still less anyone else, from filing a protest, but I look upon the new water project as an opportunity to have access to better quality water — and to learn to use less of it.

Julia Menard-Warwick
Davis

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