As a resident of Southern California, I spend a good amount of time driving to andfrom work. Ah yes, one of the many delights of living in sunny SoCal. Or rainy SoCal, as it has been so far this year.

Anyway, the freeway that I take to work every day parallels one of our "rivers." Yes, they call it a "river." I'm sure way back before it was a concrete-lined flood control channel it was really a river, but now, like I said, it's a concrete-lined flood control channel that hardly ever has any water in it. When it rains though, it's a different story...

When it rains in SoCal, all (or most) of the water that lands in my local mountains and foothills ends up in this "river," flowing down from teh hills and into the ocean. Yeah, you heard me, into the ocean. The mighty Pacific Ocean. You might have heard of it, as it's the largest body of water on Earth. As much as I love the ocean, does it really need more water? No, it's got plenty of room for fish, mammals, plants, boats, fishermen, and Marine Electronics users. The Pacific Ocean doesn't need any more water than it already has.

That brings me to my point. If the ocean already has enough water, who needs this water instead? Oh yeah, that's right, WE DO. The inhabitants of Southern California. You might recognize us as the people who are always bitching about a draught, and about hw we need more water. So what do we do when the gods give us this gift of insane amounts of water? That's right, we just dump it into the ocean. Along with all of our dirt, junk, bacteria, and other miscellaneous crap that it picks up on the way.

Believe me, I understand that to harness, process, use, and benefit from this water, we would require an insane reservoir infrastructure budget. There is no way that we could just change our ways immediately, but isn't it something to consider in the long run?