Water board defender fires back at Picht
My longtime friend and former neighbor, Clyde Picht, commented in the July 15-28 edition of the Business Press on my “History of Tarrant Regional Water District” article published June 24. Permit me to rebut one of his remarks concerning the District’s conservation success (or lack thereof). Mr. Picht states that “the wetlands project that encompasses 1,800 acres is a good thing but it is a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands of acre-feet in a reservoir.” Indeed? Au contraire, the water from the Trinity conserved in the awards-winning George Shannon Wetlands Water Reuse Facility, and added to the volume in storage at Richland-Chambers Reservoir, is equivalent to the firm supply to the water district from the West Fork of the Trinity (from Lake Bridgeport and Eagle Mountain Lake). Viewed another way, the wetlands increases water supply storage in Richland-Chambers by about one-fourth! Since Richland-Chambers at conservation level is 1,112,763 acre-feet, the conservation savings certainly is not just a drop in the bucket. I thus contend that my statement of success in water conservation was not overstated. I certainly agree with Mr. Picht that “we need a lot of water to satisfy projected growth.” The wetlands projects, incidentally, remain the least expensive means of augmenting the district’s available water. Earl G. Alexander, Fort Worth
Timeless poem, timely commentary
An excerpt from Sir Walter Scott’s 1805 poem “The Lay of the Last Minstrel” was featured in the famous short story by Edward Everett Hale, “The Man Without a Country,” in 1863. Thanks to Edward Snowden, leaker of U.S. secrets and denizen of international airports, Scott’s words are as relevant today as they were 150 years ago.
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned, From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go,mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. Don Woodard, Fort Worth