Letters are posted as we receive them during the week, and before they are printed in the paper, so check back frequently to see new letters. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor, use this postmarks submission form, or email your letter directly to mail@austinchronicle.com. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    I have been a reader of your newspaper since high school, and am now a married woman and mom. I've loved perusing the events and happenings of my city through your paper, but have known since the beginning of my readership to just avoid the section after the music listings. I am not thrilled that I now have to dart my eyes away from seeing the Adult Services ads as I look at the music listings – like a porn pop-up on my computer. Why have you decided that an industry based on lust, addiction, and infidelity must no longer be confined to one section of your publication? Has there been a consensus that the Chronicle is not liberal enough? I am not asking for the removal of these ads, but I would ask that they stay confined to a section of the Chronicle for only those looking for such services. The Week just reported the cost of prostitution is going down because the service has become so readily available, and so I wonder why do we as a culture continue to place these prolific images closer to the public's eye? Please, for the sake of some caliber of honor in your readership, keep the adult ads contained to a section that can be avoided, if desired.

Dear Editor,
    Lizzie Jespersen's article "Becoming Drought Tolerant" [News, Aug. 29] well reviewed how this region may respond to and/or learn to live in a drier climate, but it failed to note a very fundamental fact. Indeed, as has often been asserted, conservation is a critical factor, but we need to transcend our business-as-usual water infrastructure model. We need to go further than conserving by just tinkering around the margins of it, rather we need to engage in a fundamental transformation of the form and function of our water resources infrastructure, moving us to deep conservation, designing water utilization efficiency into development as if that were a central function, not just appending conservation onto it as if an afterthought. A key to this will be decentralization of the infrastructure, shortening water loops, rather than extending and perpetuating what is essentially a 19th century infrastructure model that pipes water in and wastes away, creating long loops that inherently limit water utilization efficiency. Indeed, a key recommendation of the Water Resource Planning Task Force was to pursue "Decentralization: The decentralized concept is the idea that storm water and wastewater are most effectively and efficiently managed by treating it – and reusing it – as close to where it is generated as practical." This is exactly the language I used to encapsulate the "decentralized concept of wastewater management" in 1986, a strategy which I've pressed Austin Water to consider all throughout the intervening three decades, to a very unreceptive audience. It remains to be seen how it will respond to the Task Force. Regarding the storm water part of it, I branded LID/green infrastructure strategies a "decentralized concept of stormwater management" about the turn of the century and have pressed the city to adopt it. Watershed Protection has recently been quite a bit more receptive to this concept, but still largely hangs on to the conventional end-of-pipe strategy, and it needs to move further and faster to maximize the benefits of the decentralized approach. Please consider a more incisive exploration of how we can move local society toward sustainable water, rather than ever further away as the extension and perpetuation of the prevailing 19th century infrastructure model surely will move us.

Dear Editor,
    Please return to the format of including all the event listings immediately after the Calendar page. I am a recreation therapist and The Austin Chronicle is my bible. The first thing I do with a new client is show them how to find free recreation and leisure activities for themselves using the Chronicle's print edition. Having these all in one place makes it much easier for people with disabilities to find and read about them. Separating them into different sections makes it difficult, if not impossible, for some to do so.

Dear Editor,
    Thank you for featuring our city’s water challenges last week [“Becoming Drought Tolerant,” News, Aug. 29]. Your piece was generally a nice overview. However, it did not tell the reader about the important and interesting water fights raging right here in River City, and all around us. Hopefully, you were just setting the stage for a series on Austin’s water wars. To paraphrase, these water battles are too important to leave to the experts.
    A couple of corrections are needed. In reference to the city’s recent water planning task force, the author writes that “contracting with new groundwater suppliers is perhaps the least onerous [of potential new supplies for the city].” This is the opposite of the task force’s recommendations. Unanimously, the task force recommended in favor of prioritizing water efficiency, reuse, and locally sourced water and against expensive groundwater imports. (For context, San Antonio is considering groundwater imports at a cost of over $3 billion to its ratepayers.)
    The author also confuses the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer in southern Travis County and northern Hays County, regulated by the “BSEACD” groundwater district, with an unregulated portion of the Trinity Aquifer in western Travis County. The Berne’s wells that went dry are in the unregulated Trinity in western Travis County.
    In short, building a water efficient economy is the only affordable and sustainable path forward.