THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 4, 1995 TAG: 9506030006
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
Jacqueline Widmer's letter (May 20) warning of impending apocalypse without the Gaston pipeline (``thousands of people getting deathly ill'') was indeed an ominous specter. In my mind's eye I could picture hundreds of dehydrated surfers laying on beach blankets too weak to wisp the flies away from their Oakleys.
I have visited and worked in countries where drought is status quo and where prospective water sources like Lake Gaston just do not exist. Water is turned off during peak demand periods throughout the day. People simply adapt.
In a city like Virginia Beach where hundreds of thousands of tourists take millions of showers each year, it is unlikely that many residents here will perish from cholera or dysentery due to inadequate water resources.
Americans are spoiled and just aren't willing to be inconvenienced. I submit that a large portion of the 60 million gallons per day from Gaston will end up on people's lawns, gardens and cars. The law of supply and demand ensures that the price of something in short supply never goes down. If the Beach thinks otherwise it needs to take the needle out of its collective arm.
After many, many years, an agreement is finally at hand. Virginia Beach should now get out the checkbook.
The greatest water resource is conservation. Water restrictions may, and should, continue irrespective of the success or failure of the Gaston pipeline project.
T. C. BROWN
Norfolk, May 20, 1995
T-BROWN(AT)nise-p.nosc.mil by CNB