Insult to injury by Craig Enyart on Sonoma County Supervisors decision to accept “paper water” for Knights Bridge Winery

Shattered wine glass - Q. Dombrowski

http://www.sonomawest.com/the_healdsburg_tribune/opinion/letters/healdsburg-letters-to-the-editor/article_e27ecb00-8857-11e7-a521-13009230614e.html

Insult to injury

EDITOR: Regarding the Knights Bridge Winery project, Sonoma County has failed to look at the whole project, and in doing so has ignored the cumulative impacts, including negative effects to neighbor’s wells. Instead the developer’s fake water use numbers keep ever spiraling downward in an attempt to justify this winery project.

When the developer’s anticipated water usage data was first presented to the county in 2013, it reflected one set of numbers, and now four years later the water usage data reflects something quite different, now magically reduced. In the meantime the only thing that has changed is even more intensive water usage as the developer has replanted significant acres of new vineyard, added a 10-bed/10-bath guest lodge complete with a large recreational pool and all new landscaping.

To add insult to injury, the county is accepting the developer’s overall project water use calculations, in part by accepting the claim that the lodge’s water usage will be equivalent to “an average household of four.”

As the water uses have intensified, the development’s overall water usage calculations have gone down. How is that possible? As with fake news, so goes fake water to justify this winery project.

Craig M. Enyart, Knights Valley