Disturbing proposal
I find the proposed water bottling plant (Tribune-Herald, Sept. 4) disturbing on a number of levels.
First, it should more accurately be characterized as a “commercial extraction and bottling plant,” which means that individual investors are proposing to extract water from the county’s public water aquifer for personal profit. That just doesn’t make much sense from a taxpayer/citizen point of view.
Second, the proposal is to extract 71 million gallons of water a year from a limited public resource and ship much of it off-island. The more water this plant extracts from our common aquifer, the less will be available for private on-island individual use. Permits for individual homeowner wells will become more and more difficult to get as the water table draws down.
Finally, the Tribune-Herald earlier reported (Feb. 27) that “climate scientists at Stanford University project that, in a worst-case scenario, rainfall across the Hawaiian Islands might decrease by as much as 50 percent by the end of the century.”
So, between now and then, these investors get a good return on their investment, eight workers get employment, and the rest of us get thirsty.
How could the county Planning Commission even consider, much less approve, such an all-around bad deal for taxpayers/citizens? How could the county, in good faith, shift assets from the public trust to investment returns for private individuals?
Skip Sims
Ninole
Trump vs. the left
Regarding the current incivility: It seems to be the extreme president vs. the extreme left.
I don’t know whether President Trump is insane or a genius or just impure arrogance born of insane privilege. Or a little of all three.
However, his presidency is a product of the media and the perceived desperate fight for survival against the extreme left. The bottom line is that Trump’s supporters feel that they have no choice but to hold their noses (and guard their private parts!) and support Trump no matter what, because who else is there?
Trump supporters have seen the riots by the extreme left, if their candidate does not win, assassination attempts at a Republican charity baseball practice, dangerous campus disruptions so a conservative speaker cannot speak, and the movement to simply ignore law if one does not agree.
Until someone else comes along, Trump will continue to have a strong core.
Leighton Loo
Mililani, Oahu
