Letters: Water consumers | Property crime | Medi-Cal coverage

Mercury News Letters to the Editor for Jan. 7, 2024

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Rein in egregious
water consumers

Re: “Snowpack level at 10-year low” (Page A1, Jan. 3).

The unpredictability of the winter snow season is certainly having an effect on California’s water supply, but that is not the only risk to our increasingly unreliable water supplies.

Food & Water Watch has found that oil and gas operators devoured 3 billion gallons of freshwater between 2018 and 2021. Expanded nut crop acres required more than 520 billion gallons more water in 2021 than just four years prior, and alfalfa irrigation guzzles around 945 billion gallons of water per year. Mega-dairies use more than 142 million gallons per day.

Gov. Newsom must use his executive and emergency powers to stop the egregious misuse of California water by both preventing the expansion of large-scale farming operations and oil and gas drilling, and investing in truly sustainable climate projects. If we don’t do so quickly, the only thing predictable about our water supply is which industries will continue to exploit it.

Chirag Bhakta
California Director, Food & Water Watch
San Francisco

Ignoring property crime
leads to worse behavior

Property crime in San Jose has really gotten out of control and something needs to be done. Car thefts, break-ins, sideshows and vandalism feel like the equivalent of broken windows in neighborhoods. If these issues are neglected, the crimes will just get more serious.

Aside from installing cameras and alarms and having dogs roam our property at night, what can individual residents do without help from San Jose police and the District Attorney’s office? What should we be expected to do? No one wants neighborhood vigilante groups in San Jose. Police need to patrol all the neighborhoods. Perpetrators need to face consequences. Why aren’t our property taxes and sales tax revenue providing for these basic services?

Kris Giannini Kelly
San Jose

Covering undocumented
immigrants can’t stand

Re: “Medi-Cal adds undocumented immigrants” (Page A1, Dec. 31) and “Medi-Cal reform threatens care for vulnerable, providers argue” (Page B1, Jan. 1).

The Dec. 31 article headlined “Medi-Cal adds undocumented immigrants” was concerning and compounded with the next day’s article about Medi-Cal reform forcing existing mental health and addiction services to close. Not only is California the only state to fund comprehensive health care for undocumented immigrants of all ages, but it also holds the distinction of caring for 28% of the American unhoused population, for which mental health and addiction services are desperately needed.

That’s amid the backdrop of California’s $68 billion deficit despite increased federal funding. With California struggling to make ends meet, prioritizing taxpayer money on health coverage for undocumented immigrants is unsustainable.

K. Keaney
San Jose