No-brainer headline of the day

Courtesy of the San Diego News Network:

"Get used to water conservation in San Diego."

It's hard to fathom how folks in Parts Previously Unwatered (you know, before the California Aqueduct, William Mulholland, Lake Mead and the like) are only now coming to grips with the idea that lush lawns in a semi-arid desert is unsustainable.

But the truth of the matter is, California has always seen its plentiful rivers, lakes and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta as a resource to be tapped, tapped, tapped. The thought, it seems, is that the Golden State, long a land of bounty, will undoubtedly continue to provide.

Hence the ultimate conslusion of Doug Curlee, the op-ed's author, that a Peripheral Canal is vital to ensuring the water supply of Southern California (since it doesn't have supplies of its own). The SoCal lifestyle is unsustainable, he concedes, but that's not enough.

At least he's not afraid to say what he means when it comes to the Peripheral Canal:

If we accept the idea that Northern California has the water, and Southern California needs it, then the obvious place to spend that money is in the construction of reservoirs, canals, pipelines, and perhaps most of all, some version of the Peripheral Canal.
...
Anything that will bring more water to San Diego and Southern California can only benefit us.

Give the man credit for being honest, even if he seems to not accept the undeniable truth that water in California is, ultimately, a limited resource. And it sure seems like we passed that limit a long time ago.

Oh, and Mr. Curlee, Northern California needs the water, too.