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Thank you for your latest catalog of Portland's "Hydro Hogs" [WW, July 29, 2015]. Extravagant municipal water use is, in fact, more than just symbolic.
Cities seek to meet the demands of their customers by taking water from rivers and streams that are important to fish and wildlife. The Bull Run Watershed that supplies most of Portland's water is part of the Sandy River system, which is home to numerous species of fish and wildlife, including salmon and steelhead listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Your article might be even more to the point if you expanded into surrounding suburbs. Lake Oswego and other water providers are taking large amounts of water from the Clackamas River, no doubt to supply demands like those described in your article, even while the fish there are literally dying from high temperatures and low flows.
—John DeVoe, executive director WaterWatch of Oregon
It's pretty wonderful that in our fair city, the very wealthy are spending real bucks to grow and maintain trees and shrubs, which provide significant roles in stormwater retention, production of shade and other means that encourage infiltration and combat climate change.
It could be interesting, instead, for WW to do some investigative reporting on high-water-use businesses and industries and showcase ways that water can be more efficiently used by them.
—Marty Mitchell
SHACKLING CHILD DEFENDANTS
A school-to-prison pipeline—what else can you call this madness? ["Chain Reaction," WW, July 29, 2015.] Prosecutors and cops want monsters, so they simply create them, one little kid at a time.
—Vladamir Muhammud
A CITY ON THE ROPES
That's funny, Portland makes the news two weeks in a row, and both for the same thing, freaking dildos hanging from a rope!
—Lora Jane Deckert
CORRECTION
Due to an editor's error, last week's story on Portland's biggest water users ("Hydro Hogs") incorrectly stated that Paul Brenneke is an executive at his father's company, Guardian Real Estate Services. In fact, he founded another Portland real-estate company, also named Guardian. The Avalon Hotel & Spa, which Brenneke built, was sold and operates as River's Edge Hotel & Spa. WW regrets the error.
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WWeek 2015