ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Talk of the Town
Hydro Thievery Is Just Morally Repugnant
REGARDING THE Augustin water grabbers breaking their silence, what they have actually done is create a document of puffery and propaganda of which a peacock would be proud but no person of reason could take seriously.
The plan to pump oceans of water from underneath the Plains of San Augustin would set a terrible precedent in which water would be sequestered and privatized for individual profit without regard to the wreckage of abandoned communities and environmental devastation left behind.
Contrary to the corporate claim, it is not known how much water could be pumped from the Augustin basin without impairing the wells of people who live there and without affecting stream flows in the Gila and Alamosa rivers, both of which form rich wildlife corridors on which people depend.
It is a ridiculous irony that the plan to pipe this water to the Rio Grande and make some as-yet-unsuspecting end users pay for it through the nose would likely undermine the stream flow from the Alamosa River that is already entering the Rio Grande basin for free right now.
MARY KATHERINE RAY
Winston