A Word with. . . Dusty Baker
The Major League Baseball hero looks to all of us to join in solving California’s water worries.
Q. What got you interested in California’s water needs?
A. I’m a native Californian. I grew up fishing and hunting up and down the state with my dad, on the banks of the Santa Ana River in Riverside, and later on the American River near my family’s house in Carmichael. My idea of fun then was to go striper fishing in season. I’d stop in at the fish hatcheries in late fall to see the spawners coming upstream, watching the salmon and steelheads leaping their way up the fish ladders to lay their eggs. But the fish aren’t there in the numbers I used to see. And when I go down to the Delta with my fishing buddies, I observe the general decline in the habitat there. Up at Folsom Lake, I see the water level down so far sometimes that the launch ramps are a half-mile back from the water. Like any parent, I want to imagine my kids growing up to enjoy the outdoor pleasures I had, but what will our legacy be?
Q. Do you think the message is getting through?
A. I don’t think so. I can remember back to 1984, when I was complaining one day about the price of gasoline to my teammate Joe Price’s father. Joe’s father had a water bottling company, and he said to me, “Dusty, mark my word, one day you’ll be paying more for a gallon of water than for a gallon of gas!” Of course, I thought he was crazy then, but it comes back to me now how close to the truth he was. A lot of people are still back where I was then, thinking this shortage we’re going through is some temporary thing, or that if some other guy would just stop taking more than his share we’d be all right. But no one group is more deserving than any other. There’s hardship ahead for everyone if we don’t buckle down and solve these competing issues together. One thing is sure, we can’t keep going the way we have been.
Q. Are you and your family doing anything special at home to save water?
A. For starters, we’re just being more aware of where the water goes. We take shorter showers, flush less often, are more careful doing the laundry, check for leaks in the sprinkler system, and fix anything that drips. My 10-year-old is getting the same reminders at school, so he comes home and bugs us, which is good. I made a public service announcement about saving water this past fall, so I’m in the funny position now of turning on the TV and lecturing myself sometimes!