LETTER: Let’s get real about the water issue

We either need to get our heads out of the sand. George Caan’s solution after 15 years is still doing the same thing, trying to have conservation solve our water problems (“The water conundrum,” Sunday Review-Journal).

We keep looking for the same solutions, but the solutions aren’t there. We have to think outside the box and look at this problem as a national issue regarding who has water abundance and no population and who has population abundance but no water. The solution is to look to the northwest to the Snake and Columbia rivers and develop a pipeline to Flaming Gorge, Lake Powell and Lake Mead to bring a continuous water supply to these reservoirs.

We must stop trying to figure out who’s going to cut back on water in agriculture and business. We need to build an infrastructure for the West for the next 200 years — especially the southwest, which will continue to grow. Conservation is not going make it. We need to be able to develop the population, business, agriculture and industry to make the Western states thrive. Conservation leads to no growth.

So take our heads out of the sand and quit trying to point the finger at who’s going to have to turn off the water.