Wastewater wine

Editor: Regarding the ill-conceived “…plans by the Sonoma County
Water Agency and the City of Santa Rosa to dispose of billions of
gallons of treated wastewater onto our Valley,” if I was from a
rivalry camp like maybe Napa Valley or France, once the treated
wastewater was flowing through Sonoma vineyards and a taste of our
wine leaves a curious finish, I would be making sure my P/R people
did a great job getting the story out to the world. I can envision
an article titled “Sonoma Wastewater Wine … it’s an easy choice.”
New wine labels will appear on the Internet social networks, for
example; Sonoma Sludge, Sonoma Sauvignon Brun, Messy Merlot, Sonoma
Stinky, Excrement of Zinfandel, Plop Plop Pinot, and so on.
Seriously for one moment, here are a few things going into
wastewater; urine, feces, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, food
additives, cigarette butts, snuff, personal care products, all the
metals and toxic hazardous chemicals of industry, synthetic fibers,
petroleum, seawater ingress, acid/alkali and cyanide, and this list
literally goes on forever.
You might be thinking this is only a wine grower/maker issue,
but using a little imagination one can see it can quickly become a
community issue.
Finally, I’d like to ask “What are we thinking?” but in reality
I don’t believe we are thinking at all.
Bill Merkes
Healdsburg