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Water projects can
hit deadlines, budgets
Re. “California water future mirrors housing debacle,” Page A6, Dec. 15:
We agree that more needs to be done to secure California’s water future, but misleading editorials, like the one in the Mercury News, are not the solution to solving our water problems.
Water-related tunnel projects can, indeed, be completed on time and under budget. Local projects are better examples than a cherry-picked one from Boston. The award-winning SFPUC Bay Tunnel from Newark to Palo Alto was built between 2011 and 2013 and replaced old, unreliable infrastructure from the 1920s and 1930s. It was completed six months ahead of schedule and $25 million under budget.
The Mercury News also continues to mischaracterize the planned Delta tunnel as not adding one drop of additional water to California’s supply, but that’s not its purpose. It is a reliability project for existing water supplies, protecting against interruption due to seismic threats as well as reducing risks to endangered species.
Mike Wade
California Farm Water Coalition
Sacramento
Add greenhouse gases
to weather map
The Mercury News regularly publishes a detailed page on the weather, showing local, national, and international outlooks for temperature and weather conditions.
As is regularly reported, climate change has started to have a major impact on weather conditions worldwide, caused primarily by the increased levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere from human activity. Therefore, it would make very good sense if the newspaper also reported the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere, providing an ongoing record, helping people to regularly see and get used to these numbers and hopefully relate them to resultant weather patterns.
Roger Hoyt
San Jose
‘Patent trolls’ fight
for the little guy
Re. “How Congress can help innovators fight patent trolls,” Page A6, Dec. 15:
So Linda Moore thinks small companies and entrepreneurs should cede their rights to their inventions to big companies for free, cause, gosh, it’s un-American to do otherwise.
Don’t be fooled by the term patent troll. It was invented by big corporate America. Many (high-tech) companies simply stole others’ inventions and said sue me if you don’t like it. But suing is an expensive hellhole. Well, now some are suing and getting value for their inventions with the help of these so-called patent trolls.
Why should an invention get less respect than a song or book? We don’t call people who protect copyright material “Copyright Trolls.”
Robert Lipp
Los Gatos
Let office-holders
pick their replacements
As a San Jose District 10 resident I, too, am interested in who will be our new City Council representative. I also sympathize with the concern about the cost of a special election.
If the representatives are to be appointed let the current council members, that we elected, appoint them: Sylvia Arenas for District 8 and Matt. Mahan for 10. That way we can feel that we have at least somewhat fair representation.
Having them appointed by people that we didn’t vote for makes no rational sense and has no place in a representative democracy.
Steve Brown
San Jose
U.S. Farm Bill will do
a world of good
A Nov. 29 opinion article advocated for Silicon Valley technological solutions to food insecurity. The need is great – today 828 million people are facing malnutrition, with 70 million of those at risk of starvation due to the war in Ukraine, supply chain disruptions, and climate change.
The U.S. Farm Bill is a broad package of legislation that authorizes many U.S. farm programs, and critically, food aid and agricultural support for poor countries.
Congress is currently negotiating the next five years of Farm Bill funding. Title III of the bill includes foreign aid for hunger relief, sustainable agriculture assistance, childhood nutrition and emergency food for disaster relief.
We urge the House Agriculture Committee to advocate for justice and support our world’s most vulnerable suffering from poverty, hunger and forced migration by pushing for increased funding in the 2023 Farm Bill for the Food for Peace, and other worthy programs.
Larry Reeves
Catholic Relief Services
Palo Alto
Source: www.mercurynews.com