Letter: Let the water guzzlers pay for extra costs

Could I say this? We live in a desert. We need to conserve water. A sales tax to deliver more water will be counterproductive and will encourage more waste, in my opinion. Please consider the following scenario, which is repeated thousands of times throughout the valley.

My neighbor has a lush water garden -- fountains, a pool, etc. -- and almost one-half acre of lush lawn, trees, and shrubs, etc. I went to considerable expense to put in all rock, desert landscape, with bubblers on a few shrubs and desert plants. My neighbor uses approximately 30 times the amount of water that I do.

I respectfully ask: Why should I and others like me be asked to pay a sales tax (the most regressive tax there is) so that my neighbor, and others like him, will be able to afford the cost of water to maintain a semitropical landscape?

The surest way to conserve water is to place the cost on those who use it, and who in too many instances, allow it to run down the street. To ask me, a retiree on a fixed income, to subsidize the elaborate water usage of others, seems unfair and is a counterproductive conservation measure -- prima facie.

H.M. Nichols

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