Should the Springfield City Council continue to pursue construction of Hunter Lake as a backup water source to Lake Springfield?

No

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by Anne Logue

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We have only scratched the surface at what we need to do to conserve water in Springfield. Drought is a global phenomenon and locally we can start now in creative approaches that can be done easily and quickly to reduce unnecessary water use. American's love affair with the lawn is overrated. Many businesses have shown that you can have a beautiful landscape without heavy watering. As a community, if we make a concerted effort, we can avoid the enormous cost of Lake II just by not doing it. In these difficult times, it is ridiculous that we are even considering it. If we develop a united effort to conserve we achieve two purposes: water conservation and fiscal responsibility. In Atlanta, we have seen the tremendous crisis there that should forshadow our own dilemna here in how we are using water. Las Vegas is very efficient in their community conservation efforts and there is no reason we cannot adopt these practices here. To build Lake II just because we invested all of this money into it as a city just implies that we throw good money after bad. This land Springfield purchased for Lake II, environmentally,has the potential to be a wonderful natural resource which we can use to attract visitors and potential residents to our community. I was disappointed in Gail Simpson's comment that by implementing Lake II we would have a greater area where people can go boating. This is a terrible reason to burden our city with massive expenses when the nation as a whole is already struggling. As I said before, we are just starting to learn about conservation practices in the Springfield area. People are really coming around by recycling (which by the way reduces landfill waste that is also a significant source of methane gas), and there is so much more we can do to participate in making a difference in rolling back climate change. It is going to take all of us to do this which means that no one can just put it on their neighbor to be responsible. We all need to do this. For those who refuse to see the climate changes occuring and our role in this, I would say, consider the financial advantage of opting for water conservation techniques to save the city millions of dollars. Millions of dollars that could be spent making Springfield a much more attractive place to live by investing in road repair, energy efficiency projects, investment in local businesses, city beautification. We are caught in this weird trance that just because we have this land we must go through with this massive project. We can opt out of this. Furthermore, it may not even be legally possible. Let's hope the law saves us from ourselves.

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