Letter of the Day: Pipeline? More like pipedream...

Editor, Index-Tribune:

I cannot believe what I read on the front page of the Index-Tribune last month (“Schools look into recycled water,” Nov. 4).

The Sonoma Valley County Sanitation District wants to install one-and-a-half miles of pipeline to supply the high school with reclaimed water for irrigating 12 acres of play fields. The Sonoma Valley Unified School District claims it can save $65,000 per year after spending $250,000 for adaptation of its system to use this water.

Sounds like a reasonable pursuit, but the part not explained is the cost of the pipeline! “We have the money,” says the sanitation district.

Well, a pipeline of such magnitude could surely cost upward of $2 million to $3 million if it is in the range of 6 to 8 inches in size. Three million dollars to save $65,000? Doesn’t sound like a very good investment.

If the sanitation district “has the money” why don’t they use it to mitigate the 5 percent increase in our fixed-costs charge, or perhaps supply water to the many vineyards located in close proximity to the existing pipeline at Watmaugh?

On another level, we are told this tertiary treated water should be safe enough to drink. I believe what we have been told, but why then is there an issue with allowing runoff into Nathanson Creek?

What’s missing? Is this really the water we want on a school play field?

Bob Albright

Sonoma