Letter: Wasted water

Editor: In my city of Merced water bill last month and this month I received, as everyone else did, a glossy-colored brochure asking all of us to conserve water. I believe it was titled "Every drop is precious!" One of the statistics it printed was "21 million gallons of water pumped in Merced each day."

This is staggering when you think about it. Therefore, I would like to say to the city that most likely 20 million gallons are on R Street between Olive and Loughborough every morning with the sprinklers that are watering the median between the two-way traffic. I leave for my work in the early morning and even on the nonwatering day of Monday, R Street is flooded. Not just wet, but flooded. To avoid splashing the water up on my car, I drive at 15 mph. Additionally, I watched the median in front of the new courthouse water the palm trees for five hours last week. Again, the street was totally flooded.

Does no one from the city check the automatic sprinkler systems? I find the blatant waste of this water despicable. I often see Merced police cars turning into their Loughborough station in the mornings, and yet none of them has complained. This letter is a request that the city stop wasting my water.