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Re. “Tiny fish hindering water capture,” Page A1, Jan. 14:
Your article on water capture ignores a very obvious reason for not filling the reservoirs at this point, and it has nothing to do with tiny fish. It’s called the snowpack.
If we fill our reservoirs now, and we get a warm atmospheric river in March, and the snowpack melts, then we have no capacity to hold that water back. Look back to the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville. With the volume of the current snowpack it would flood Sacramento, Stockton and the Delta region.
It’s easy to blame a little fish for our water deficit, but what about the expanding planting of almonds and vineyards at the same time we are expanding housing and population in arid regions of the state? Instead, we should be looking to capture water run-off in urban environments. There are 40 million people in the state, but let’s blame a fish.
Peter CalimerisPleasant Hill
The big difference between Donald Trump’s documents and Joe Biden’s is the difference between cooperation and obstruction.
If Trump had turned over the documents when asked, several times, Mar-a-Lago would never have been searched.
Frank GrygusSan Ramon
Re. “Vacancies on offices, rents rise at year end,” Page B1, Jan. 16:
The East Bay Times reports the office vacancy rate for Oakland, including Jack London Square, is 25%. One wonders how many vacant offices the A’s ownership development project will add to Oakland.
Please, do not approve this plan.
Mike TracyOakland
California annually imports some 2 million American bullfrogs (commercially raised) and 300,000 freshwater turtles (taken from the wild) for human consumption, non-natives all. All are diseased and/or parasitized, though it is illegal to sell such products. Released into local waters, the non-natives prey upon and displace our native species.
The market animals are kept in horrendous conditions, often butchered while fully conscious. Worse, the majority of the bullfrogs carry the dreaded chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), which has caused the extinctions of 100-plus amphibian species worldwide in recent years.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife should cease issuing import permits. The powers-that-be seem more concerned about politics as usual, profits and cultural/racial matters than the real issues here — environmental protection, public health, unacceptable animal cruelty and law enforcement.
The deadline for the introduction of new bills is Jan. 20. Let your representatives hear from you.
Eric MillsOakland
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