🚀 go-pugleaf

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	From a previous essay I wrote about the dilemma over the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the San Francisco Bay.  If you
have read the previous essay or are familiar with the problem
please skip to the fifth paragraph.  
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	The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the San Francisco Bay
meet and form a estuary where a unique ecology exists.  The
plants an animals survive on a mixture of fresh water from the
mountains and the salt water from the ocean.  Water pumps
installed a few decades ago to deliver fresh water to California
residence, business and most of all farmers, have disturbed the
water to salt water ratio.  As a consequence the ecosystem has
deteriorated.  One of the prime victims and focus of the debate
is the threatened delta smelt.  The population of three inch-
smelt has decreased from 2.6 million to 200,000 over the past
decades.  The devastation works its way up the food chain
affecting bass and other fish that survive of the smelt.  
	The dilemma "encompasses many significant issues such as
urban growth and agriculture and a political wrestling match
between the Wilson and Clinton Administration," states the L.A.
Times.  With the very fact that the dilemma has been argued for
fifteen year signifies that a solution is not close,  but with
environmental pressure Clinton has stepped in.  Last December
Clinton announced various steps to cutback the water distributed
to farms and cities from the delta.  He proposed a 7% cutback in
water use with a goal of reducing usage by 540,000 acre-
feet/year. The state amended that the cutback would actually
cutback 25% considering the way the state would execute the
Federal proposal.
	The consequences are plentiful and harsh.  With the
combination of the agriculture and industry "tens of thousands of
jobs"-L.A. Times, would be at stake.  More than $12 billion
dollars will be lost in industry.  Ethics take part in the issue
determining whether the livelihood of a human is worth being lost
to a minnow.  How will someone standing in the unemployment line
feel about the ecocentric view to save the smelt rather than
spare industrialization?"

	Personally I feel that establishing protection over the
habitat of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the San Francisco
Bay is hazardous for society and not a successive step in saving
the environment.  I would like to look at this issue from a
homocentric standpoint which I have done for most of my life. 
From this standpoint society will benefit with productivity and
stability, and the environment will benefit from restoration and
balance.
	By establishing cutbacks on the water supply to cities,
industry and agriculture, society will decline and become
insecure.  "The issue encompasses... the failure of urban growth
and agriculture," states the L.A. Times.  The 540,000 acre
feet/year or 25% cutback on the pumped water would drain its main
consumer, the aqueduct which supplies farm and Southern
California citizens.  ("the water consumed by 1 million Southern
California households"- L.A. Times)  You cannot deny water and
food to citizens of the state, since food an water are necessary
for survival.  With recent droughts citizens have contributed to
conserve water, and now water will be further restricted and
limited even more in succeeding droughts.  The state reports that
the 540,000 acre feet of water lost per year could increase to
1.1 million in times of drought.  Greater losses will be lost in
industry.  15% to 30% of water supplies will be reduced to
industry.  With the Silicon Valley and other water based
industries the water reductions mean the cost of production which
in turn will result in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs,
states the L.A. Times.  With the decrease of agriculture and
industry California's economic structure would be on the line and
society in general will be endangered instead of the fish it will
protect.  Furthermore with the state growing populously and
industrially, society would be negatively effected to a higher
degree.  Considering all the effects, it would be ethical to
secure the livelihood of a human or many in society rather than a
species of minnow.   
	The cutbacks would not be a successive step in saving the
environment.  By reducing the water supply we are chopping at the
stalk of the problem rather than the root and so the basic
problem of man verse environment will spread.  A quick solution
will end in society finding another water resource to destroy, so
the devastation will leak to other locations.  The ultimate
solution would be to solve the root of the problem, the inherent
conflict between human and nature(impossible), but there are more
visible solutions.  More likely solutions like reclaimed water
facilities and other similar ideas should be considered.  Though
they will take more planning and money, they are more likely to
lead to a prospective solution for environmentalists and
industrialists.  Also the process of development itself will
create jobs rather than deplete them.  Yet another solution, less
attainable, would be to change the mentality of humans to view
the world with a more ecocentric view, where man and nature are
equal.  At the very least, people should realize that the water
they waste, in or out of a drought, not only depletes the water
resources but also effects the ecology directly.
	From the viewpoint of a homocentric ethic which establish a
balance between man and nature, the protection of the habitat of
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the San Francisco Bay is
hazardous for society and not a successive step in saving the
environment.
ww10baz@ucsd.edu