Cogeneration plant doesn’t solve water crisis
While I appreciate the Daily Bruin highlighting the importance of sustainability on campus (“State-of-the-art water recycling system fuels campus facilities,” News, Aug. 11), Mike Saelee misleads the reader in his claim that “the (water) crisis will continue to have little impact on UCLA” because of the campus’s cogeneration plant.
While a cogeneration plant is an extremely efficient energy-generating facility, it does little to protect UCLA from increasing water shortages outside of the water used to heat and cool the campus.
It is nothing new for cogeneration facilities to recycle water, but only the water used in this closed loop system is recycled. Water sourced for the rest of the campus’s needs is subject to the same shortages faced by the rest of California.
UCLA should continue to develop water conservation practices, advocate for sound policy, and promote technological advances to help the state use our resources more efficiently.
With future shortages UCLA may not have enough water to keep the grass green, but at least the classrooms will still get air conditioning. That hardly seems like a “little impact” to me.
Jason Kaminsky
Stanford University, graduate student in environment and resources
UCLA alumnus of 2006, mathematics and atmospheric, oceanic and environmental science
Parking is a privilege, not a fight
This article is in response to “Parking assigned without students’ needs in mind” (Aug. 19). In the submission, the author complains about not being assigned parking in her preferred lot and being forced to walk across campus to access her car. What she doesn’t realize, however, is that thousands of students who live on campus don’t have cars at all and must walk much farther than she does.
Students who live in Westwood Village apartments are not eligible for on-campus parking and must walk even farther to get to their classes or to utilize public transportation. Comparatively speaking, those who are fortunate enough to be able to drive right to campus and park at UCLA have it relatively easy and should not be complaining.
I have no doubt that UCLA would love to provide parking spots to all students in their desired lots. However, this would necessitate building new structures, which would take up valuable space on campus, divert funds from other projects, and cause more congestion, none of which would be acceptable to the community.
Instead, there are several transportation services provided by the campus, such as evening vans, CSO escorts, and the Wilshire Center shuttle. Utilizing these services would be much more productive than complaining about being forced to walk across campus a couple of times a day.
Josh Chung
Second-year, electrical engineering