As I said, I agree that the plant is a bad idea. And I never tried to defend the process as "fair." Nestle does, in fact, have a budget of sorts-- it projects using 150 acre-feet annually of water. It could go higher, but there are limits on the amount of water they can pull through existing connections. My point is that a single water bottling plant will NEVER, even under the worst-case scenario, come close to the volume of water used by residents of Sacramento to water lawns, wash cars, and fill the gutters. And while I agree that the Nestle plant is a bad idea, I would love to see people (and the City Council) get equally angry about this much more significant source of waste. I appreciate Council Member McCarty's interest in the City's stewardship of its water. I would like to see a similar statement from him in support of the City's aggressive enforcement of the conservation policy-- a policy that exists, I believe, because of an ordinance he voted for. As part of its fight "to protect the Lower American River from upstream diversions," the City made commitments in the Water Forum Agreement to get serious about conservation and waste reduction. Conservation is never popular, but we need our leaders to stand up for good policy even when it's unpopular-- not make backhanded slaps at the city for "busting" people for flooding the sidewalks.

Paul, I for one don't know offhand how much residential water is used consumptively. It's true that a good portion of it comes to the river through the sanitary sewers and storm sewers, but treating that water is not cheap. And downstream water users are continually beating up on the Sacramento region to do a more thorough (and costly) job of treating wastewater. Leaving the water in the river in the first place, when possible, is better for the environment, better for downstream water users, and less expensive for Sacramento.

I agree that it's stupid to place a water bottling plant in a city that stands at the epicenter of a water supply crisis of epic proportions. But please, a little perspective. Nestle plans to use about 150 acre-feet of water per year. Compare that to the water that will be used by some residential developments in the region-- like, for example, the 3,500-unit Greenbriar development approved by the City recently. For comparison, you can roughly estimate residential water use by allotting 1 acre-foot per year for each family of 4. If each of the 3,500 units in Greenbriar will house a family of 4 (admittedly a liberal estimate), that would mean that Greenbriar will consume 3,500 acre feet annually-- more than 20 times the water used by the Nestle plant. And that's only a single proposed development project. Council Member McCarty, if we're concerned about water use in Sacramento, then the focus must continue to be on residential use. Even moderate reductions in per-household water use in Sacramento residences can add up to water savings that will dwarf the Nestle plant's entire water budget. It's not fair to use the Nestle plant as an excuse to beat up on the City for enforcing reasonable conservation measures, like limits on lawn watering and prohibitions on wasteful irrigation runoff.