The Community

The overdraft of the BorregoValley aquifer is caused by those who mine the aquifer for crass commercial and financial gain.  The solution to the overdraft is made difficult or impossible, however, not so much by these extractive enterprises themselves, but a stubborn inertia that permeates and debilitates the broader community.

Awhile back Richard Louv  had a column in the San Diego Union Tribune entitled "San Diego's bad case of 'presentatism'. " He credits Steve Erie, a UCSD Political Scientist and Director of the university's Program in Urban Studies and Planning with coining the term.  In Prof. Erie's expert opinion, "Either San Diego gets its act together and starts thinking more seriously about the future, or the region will suffer long-term decay."

San Diegan's self-destructive attitudes, as described in Louv's column, are:

Whatever gets us by for now is O.K.

Don't bother us with details.

Don't make us think.

Don't expect us to pay anything to prevent problems farther away than Tuesday.

San Diego, however, has nothing on Borrego where there exists an especially pernicious form of presentism and a looming water crisis.  The catastrophic consequences of this combination are utterly predictable and bearing down at an alarming rate.  Borrego gives a whole new and frightening meaning to the concept of presentism and is a poster child for the old adage that:  "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."  Folks in Borrego are very good at doing nothing.  Pretty scary.