Faithful Differences

Mr. Bernstein asks a Christian minister who’d given the eulogy at his friend’s funeral if he’d ever read the Old Testament’s Ecclesiastes 9.

He had not.

Then Bernstein cites The New Testament’s John 16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son…” and interprets that to mean “it doesn’t even matter what you do on Earth. It just matters that you believe in Jesus as your savior.” He doesn’t explain how he got there but one must assume he’s correct because he holds degrees in physics from famous institutions? It seems that Bernstein is unfamiliar with what the New Testament teaches on how Jesus wanted all, Jew and Gentile, to conduct their lives.

What was Bernstein’s objective in writing his piece? To preach his truth? Why?

There are billions in the world who believe in the “invented” story of the Resurrection. 

And many millions, like myself, a member of the Orthodox church for whom the Resurrection is the touchstone of our faith.

My son’s father-in-law has just gone into hospice care. David is a Unitarian minister. I don’t know the Unitarian view of an afterlife.

I know him as a sweet, kind man, David deserves one.

Why shouldn’t we all try to live our lives in a way that merits this hoped for gift of God?

Bill Tragos
Montecito, California

Searching for Parking

Here is a thought: upon looking at a Google Earth aerial photo of Coast Village Circle, there seems to be room for additional parallel parking along most of the north side of the street. Not enough to totally solve the problem, but with adding three paseos from CVC up to the CVR sidewalk, they might help. Probably on private property, but issues could be resolved. There may not be a grand solution, but adding parking here and there as suggested may be the only answer.

Bob Easton, Architect

Potty-Mouth

Beware of consolidating water and sanitary districts and all over the overdevelopment while we already have a water crisis. When I briefly returned to Westlake Village, I learned of the progression of recycling what you flush back into your kitchen sink and entire house! I met an employee of Carpinteria Water District and she told me desalination is not enough, and they are moving toward recycling sewer water.

I wrote to Kevin McNamee, City of Thousand Oaks Councilmember, hoping that Las Virgenes Water District would abandon the process after COVID-19 and found out they are still moving forward.

This is how City Council responded:

“Thank you for your interest in water and its sustainability. As Sacramento is forcing cities to build more housing units, the demand for water will increase. The options open to the cities are many and the best use at the lowest cost are factors to consider.

“Desalinization costs about $3,000 per acre foot whereas our current water costs about $1,700 per acre foot. Desalinization is very expensive plus there are additional costs to pipe it to the distribution locations, which are also very costly and cost prohibitive.

“The term ‘Toilet to Tap’ is a misleading image for the following reason.

“Currently, the water we drink comes from the many water sources such as the ocean, lakes, rivers, bays, streams, and even well water. The cleanest of the above is the well water, assuming it is found deep enough and has gone through enough earth layers to naturally filter out impurities. It may need removal of minerals like calcium, magnesium, and fluoride but it will need chlorine treatment to ensure safety. The challenge is the Ventura County area does not have adequate wells for residential consumption. The well water is used by the farmers. Ventura County residents receive the vast majority of its drinking water from Metropolitan Water District – imported water from Los Angeles who gets its water from Northern California among other sources. (Note: Simi Valley uses a few wells.)

“The other sources listed above, ocean, rivers, lakes, bays, etc. are the other sources as options. Let’s walk through the path of the water from the time it leaves the wastewater treatment plant. 

“This water has the solids removed (Note: wastewater is 99% liquid and 1% solids) with the water effluent treated to a level equal to the receiving water – ocean, lake, river, stream, bay, etc. so nature is not harmed in any way. The water quality from the wastewater plant must be at a level comparable to the receiving water.

“Now this water leaving the wastewater plant is delivered into and mixed with the receiving water (ocean, lake, river, bay) which has bacteria like E. coli, viruses, and protozoa plus debris like trash, decaying organisms, etc. This is a much-contaminated body of water compared to what is leaving the wastewater plant. Now this water has fish and mammals defecate in it, pollutants dumped into the water, among other contaminants introduced by nature and man.

“So now the water treatment plant pulls water out of the ocean, lake, stream, river, etc. and needs to remove all the above that were introduced by nature and man.

“This water is more contaminated than when it left the wastewater plant.

“The term ‘Toilet to Tap’ is a misnomer and incorrect.

“The water leaving the wastewater plant is cleaner than the water pulled from oceans, lakes, streams, rivers, etc. The effluent water from the plant can go to a holding reservoir or into advanced water treatment or to conventional water treatment (currently used).

“The conventional water treatment is what is currently used for water from the ocean, lake, streams, rivers.

“However, in the water reuse model, many water treatment operators use advanced water treatment consisting of reverse osmosis (RO) / micropore technology, etc. then the water goes to conventional treatment then to the consumer. Some may bypass the conventional treatment to then go directly to the consumer. It depends on the system. Note that the water coming out of advanced water treatment is more pure than the water that comes out of your tap. In fact, calcium and magnesium need to be put back into the water so it does not destroy the distribution lines going to the consumer.

“I hope this demonstrates that the image of ‘Toilet to Tap’ is not in reality what happens. The water reuse model is actually more efficient than pulling water from the bacteria, virus, protozoa, decaying organisms found in our current rivers, lakes, streams, oceans, and bays.”

My best regards,

Kevin McNamee
Councilmember
City of Thousand Oaks”

I don’t know how anyone could be ok with that…

Danielle Loveall