Current Events Blog: Water

Article Link: http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-fresno-water-penalties-20150622-story.html

Topic: Water – Use, Loss, Allocation, and Conservation

This article is about how Fresno, California has started using more aggressive tactics in order to conserve water during the severe drought. The city has started to use a team of water monitors who follow up on reports of people wasting water and hand out penalties and fines to citizens who do not follow water conservation laws. The article follows a man named Wells, who takes on the job of water monitor and travels to reported water wasters to warn, stop, or fine them. The article goes on to discuss the success of this tactic with Fresno meeting and surpassing its conservation goal. The article compares Fresno to other cities in California and calls for other cities to do their part in conserving water by taking on some of the extreme measures that Fresno has. I have to agree with the claim made by the author of the article. I believe that it is important for every part of California and every city in California to conserve as much water as it possibly can. The fewer number of citations and fines given in cities such as Los Angeles demonstrates how lax other cities in California are about water conservation laws. In time of a serious drought, it is unfair that citizens of one part of California give up more when everyone in the state should be making a greater effort to lessen their water usage. I think the author’s argument that everyone in California has to make a greater effort to conserve water during the drought is valid since everyone in California is affected by the drought. If the entire state came together and all made attempts to conserve water, each individual would have to give up less as opposed to everyone in one city, for example in Fresno, making huge sacrifices while others continue to live as they have been. This made me start thinking on a global level about how some countries take more initiative on conservation and helping the environment and how all countries should make efforts for the same reasons that every city in California should.