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OPINION

Letters to the editor for March 27, 2021

The Gainesville Sun
Letters to the editor

The tragedy of the commons

The Sun’s editorial of March 21 commendably calls for water bottlers to pay for the water they extract from our aquifer. The larger truth is that nobody in North Florida pays for the water they use. (Existing water bills cover only processing and delivery.)

The tragedy of the commons dictates that a necessary resource available to all without cost is destined to be abused. Our single source of water is already being abused and no current policy is capable of saving our Floridan aquifer from tragedy.

Only a tiered, progressive charge on water use by everybody can possibly forestall the eventual salinization of our aquifer, the extinction of our springs and an agriculture without irrigation.

Robert E. Ulanowicz, Gainesville

Stop water bottling

The Sun's March 21 editorial is wrong-headed. It advocates charging a fee to corporate bottlers for removing water from Florida's springs. This fee will supposedly allow the springs to be "restored."

Our springs should not need to be "restored." Our springs should not be destroyed in the first place. When corporate bottlers remove millions of gallons per day, the damage to the aquifer happens regardless of any fees they pay.

Water from Florida's springs should be made available to local municipal water systems only. Water removal by corporate bottlers should not even be an option.

Steven Mossburg, Gainesville

Excellent service

I write to express my gratitude for the excellent service that I received when I went to get my COVID vaccine at the Martin Luther King Multipurpose Center on Monday, March 22.

The facility was busy but the line moved quickly; everybody observed safety measures; and the staff were knowledgeable, friendly and very professional. I was in and out in 20 minutes including the 15-minute wait. Truly government, and Gainesville, at its best.

Jim Marks, Gainesville

Underlying reasons

Adding to a March 22 letter regarding our drug use contributing to the misery of people in Central and South America, and being the reason they flock here, the writer is right — but the underlying reason for all the corruption, drug gangs, availability of drugs here, etc. goes back to at least the 1970s when our own Central Intelligence Agency, with full government approval, killed the possibly socialist, duly elected popular leaders of many of those countries, and also many countries in the Mideast (Iran, for example) and replaced them with murderous, graft-ridden right-wing dictators who killed thousands of innocent civilians and terrorized the rest with Army and police thugs. 

Nearly all the money, legal and drug-generated, went right to the top, leaving the population in poverty and fear. I agree that the border condition here is a disaster but we should understand the reasons for it, and our responsibility for it, and have some compassion for those who risk their lives to come here.

Rob Roberts, Gainesville