Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by twelve40 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

twelve40

> Legislature would have to stand up to a powerful environmentalist lobby that views humans as parasites

> even if California’s state government weren’t dominated by extremists

that's some intense wording there

> California’s grotesque failure to upgrade its water infrastructure for the 21st century

Sad to hear the CHSR-size fiascos keep piling up : (

View on HN

The Journalists at the WSJ sent a letter to their publisher complaining about the content found in their Opinion section:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wsj-journalists-ask-publisher-f...

> The letter, signed by more than 280 reporters, editors and other employees says, “Opinion’s lack of fact-checking and transparency, and its apparent disregard for evidence, undermine our readers’ trust and our ability to gain credibility with sources.”

The Wall Street Journal’s opinion page (now section) has been quite conservative for at least the few decades I’ve been reading it for. Their hard news reporting is still among the best in the business, but yeah, their political views aren’t always agreeable to me.

Extremist language not be helpful, but the author makes the case that we can build our way out of this water issue, which is better than just saying, environment be dammed.

And on the other side, every single article about the drought has to mention human caused global warming is causing these droughts.

Just stick with the fact that planet is warming and we need to adjust and maybe we can reach common ground for infrastructure issues like this.

It's an opinion article in the WSJ.

Is it wrong?

The obvious bias in the article suggests that it's probably wrong. It would take a ton of research to know for sure.

It's strange though, cause the potential solutions proposed, especially the first, seem like they would be goals of environmental lobbyists, whoever or whatever those are.

This one?

> But upgrading the urban wastewater-treatment facilities surrounding the bay would eliminate nutrient pollution, permitting more delta water to be directed to California’s farms and cities—a lot more water.

The main reason for "flushing" fresh water into the delta is to preserve the delta ecosystem. Without putting fresh water in the river, the salt water from the Bay works its way up the delta.

I tried a few searches to understand whether this wastewater issue is real or not, and the main "nutrient pollution" issue that comes up is not human waste, but instead fertilizer runoff from agriculture [1,2].

Upgrading wastewater treatment sounds great, but overall this author just doesn't seem to be honest.

[1] https://ucanr.edu/sites/DRAAWP/files/358402.pdf [2] https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/10/2845

I hadn't thought about the saltwater creep. But fertilizer runoff from agriculture is a big deal, and can have serious implications. If it's too concentrated, it can kill entire ecosystems after algal blooms. I actually did my undergrad thesis on looking into using mushrooms to reduce fertilizer runoff.

I guess it's probably pretty complicated to decide what solution would have the least environmental impact/or the one with the most desired outcome in this case.

Fertilizer runoff is a big deal, but I'm pretty sure only human waste goes through the "waste treatment plants" the author is talking about, and that fertilizer runoff does not.

That's why I consider the article to be so deceptive.

I am not a water engineer, so I'm curious, if you have a slurry with two types of impurities, human waste and fertilizer run-off, what are the properties used to categorize them and split them out? It all just goes down the drain to me so I've never considered the problem. I'm sure the answer is interesting!

Apparently there is sometimes treatment of separated runoff: https://basmaa.org/urban-runoff-treatment-retrofits/

Storm water drains use a separate system of pipes to drain straight to rivers, lakes, etcetera.

> only human waste goes through the "waste treatment plants"

I think you're probably right about this. It does seem a bit misleading now.

Opinions don’t lend themselves to being wrong or right. That’s what makes them opinions! They’re better described as agreeable or disagreeable.

It's called an opinion piece, but since it is proposing solutions to problems it would be better called a policy piece. Policies lend themselves to being right or wrong with respect to the issues the policies are meant to address.

Of course they can. You don’t get a pass on correctness just because you call your incorrect statement an opinion. E.g., “in my opinion, the Earth is a torus.”

I agree with you - your example is not an opinion statement, regardless of the first clause. But that’s not what we’re talking about. The actual article is an opinion piece.

“I don’t like broccoli” is an opinion that is neither right nor wrong. “California could solve the problem for every member of the Colorado River Compact by developing infrastructure to use untapped sources of water” is an opinion that is certainly right or wrong, even though nobody knows which it is.

Is an opinion piece by a conservative. He is evidently against unions, environmentalists, spending, and housing, and for local zoning vs the state mandates to allow building more housing. Read it through that lens.

The author is arguing for massive spending on environmental (and environmentally-friendly sounding) projects- somewhat at odds with some of the feelings expressed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com