The Borrego Water District Board From Bad To Worse

The fall 2004 election for members of the Borrego Water District Board of Directors offered as clear a choice as Borrego is ever likely to have with respect to saving the Borrego  Valley Aquifer and a referendum on Borrego's future.  On 2 November 2004, the voters made their choice and re-elected all three incumbents to the BWD Board.  Two of the three were returned by large majorities.  In light of that, there are only two possibilities for locally initiated, meaningful change in the groundwater situation:  slim and none.

No meaningful action to correct the deteriorating groundwater situation is possible without significant changes in BWD Board.  Many Borregans, however, perceive any effort to mitigate the overdraft as a threat to narrowly defined self-interests or they simply refuse to believe that the overdraft is real and serious - or both; so they are quick to return Director's who have an unblemished record of doing nothing. The Board, laundry lists of random and unfocused activities dressed up as achievements notwithstanding, has repeatedly and consistently failed and refused to take any substantive or effective action to stanch the overdraft.  They now have a mandate to continue in the same vein; and they will.  With a Board predisposed to do nothing and without popular support to compel change, nothing meaningful will ever be achieved.  11/15/2004