THE STATE of California has a sorry history of government intimidation, harassment and abuse of property owners who want to do something with their land.

Nevermind that using your property for an economically beneficial purpose — farming it, logging it or building something on it — is a constitutional right, entities such as the California Coastal Commission, goaded by environmental zealots and enabled by irresponsible legislators, have specialized in grabbing open space for the public without paying for it. If private property is to be left undeveloped, the owner should either do so voluntarily — as Clint Eastwood did, for example, with the Odello property on the east side of Highway 1 — or he should receive fair compensation, as has occasionally happened, as well.

An outstanding example of the right way to preserve open space is the acquisition two weeks ago of a prime piece of residential property on 17 Mile Drive by the Del Monte Forest Conservancy. This land will now remain undeveloped in perpetuity, thanks to the generosity of a handful of anonymous donors in Pebble Beach who ponied up the $4.1 million to buy the land. Undoubtedly some of them acted partly in self interest, because they have views across the property from their own homes. But that doesn’t matter. The point is that the family that sold the property did so voluntarily because they received a fair price, and the people who paid for it must have also received what they considered a fair return, because they acted on their own initiative.

We thank them all, not only for giving the public something precious, but for doing so the right way.

Editorial: Water water everywhere


FOR 15 years we have been recommending that private wells be drilled in many parts the Monterey Peninsula to provide more water for limited amounts of new development and to reduce pumping from the Carmel River. Finally, the Carmel City Council is acting on this commonsense idea.

According to Monterey Peninsula Water Management District attorney David Laredo, our water shortage is an “emergency.” Nevertheless, ever since the “emergency” began more than 20 years ago, the water district has done everything it could to discourage individual initiative in alleviating it.

Assuming you live outside the Carmel River watershed, if you drill a shallow well in your backyard and use the water on your garden, every bit you use will be water that doesn’t have to be taken from the river. Despite their obvious advantages for the environment, private wells have been discouraged, if not banned.

Likewise, if you went to all your neighbors’ houses and replaced their high-flow toilets with low-flow models, and used half the water thus saved to add a bathroom to your own home, the net result would be a savings for the river. But this practice is banned, too.

Finally, at least one local government is waking up to the idea that our water shortage is something to be solved for the common good, not manipulated to prevent development against the wishes of a majority of the people. Beneath Carmel, Pebble Beach, Pacific Grove and Monterey, there is plenty of fresh water that could be put to good use without spending hundreds of millions of dollars. The sooner everybody wakes up to this fact, the better.