Preserving our water is of vital importance

Dear Editor,

Since most of my letters begin in a negative spirit, I’d like to start this one in a positive vein.

I sincerely offer my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Development Services Director Scott Holtry, Public Works Director Steve Latoski, the Mohave County Public Land and Recreation Advisory Commission, and the Mohave County Supervisors for their combined actions to oppose and prevent yet another underhanded resource grab against the hapless citizens of Mohave County.

This time the attack comes in the form of a proposal by Gravity Storage LLC to use the very finite body of water beneath Red Lake to generate electric power. The County’s studies show that this water grab would waste to evaporation, twice as much water each year as the City of Kingman uses yearly.

It is bad enough that the citizens of this beautiful County are being asked to sell away our very most critical resource, water, only to discover that wonderful liquid will be used to generate power to be sold into the failed State of California.

The sale of Mohave County’s water to California is analogous to that State’s existing program of buying drugs to feed the habits of the hopeless drug addicts. The druggies’ screaming needs never go away. California’s never ceasing water addiction and ever increasing demands for water from any source will never stop.

I have railed for the last quarter century about the facts that we are a huge  County with a small population, a small tax base and a small treasury. We are, consequently, politically weak and we present an inviting target to marauders and charlatans. Those types see our County as an inviting target composed primarily of doddering old retirees who appear to be ripe for the plucking.

I commend our County’s hard working officials and employees for resisting this water grab and I ask that every person reading this write and / or call the County folks to make your thoughts known. We need the input of every citizen of this county to stay alert for this sort of resource grab and to make your voice heard loudly in the offices of all the folks grinding away at making our County a great place to live.

Jack Hommel