LETTER: Marty O’Donnell ad on the Colorado River is all wet

Few things have less relationship to validity and the truth than a political ad, but we are at least entitled to some truth about basic facts. One of those is about the water in the Colorado River. In his current TV ad, GOP congressional candidate Marty O’Donnell states that California is taking 2 million acre feet of “our” water.

The truth is that this water never was and is not ours. When the Colorado River Compact was signed in the 1920s, Nevada received its annual allocation of 300,000 acre-feet. The irony was that no one could then figure out how we would ever use that water. We did not even tap it in small amounts until 1955, and water officials did not start major withdrawals until 1971.

While Mr. O’Donnell raises valid issues about how the water is used and whether we should be shipping alfalfa to China and Saudi Arabia, making inflammatory false statements that will only confuse people about a serious issue is a disservice to the public and should make people question his basic honesty and his candidacy.