I found the juxtaposition of the Jan. 5 front page stories interesting. The biggest story, illustrated by a girl swimming in a pool, bemoaned the fact that the drought may preclude filling swimming pools in Georgia this summer. Some of the people interviewed expressed unhappiness about having their social activities curtailed.

A smaller story was illustrated by a Kenyan woman attempting to scoop up some drinking water from a mud puddle. I don’t know whether the proximity of these headlines was coincidence or design, but I hope that the contrasting stories will help Georgians put our inconveniences in perspective and realize how fortunate we really are in the global view.

MARY BALDWIN, Marietta

You raise a good question.

In fighting the California wildfires, helicopters were scooping water out of swimming pools and dumping it on the fires. It is my understanding that the fire department has the right to drain your swimming pool to put out a fire, if they cannot get water pressure on the hydrant.

As far as using pool water for drinking water, it’s certainly possible, but as far as who has rights to it, that’s a great question. I don’t know.

The issue of equity in the water might be worth thinking about: in a bonafide crisis, who should own or have rights to the water in the pool? - the individual pool owner because they paid for the water and the means to store it. Or would the State government exercise powers of eminent domain to control a precious resource to accomplish the greatest public good, while compensating the owner for the water at some pre-drought market price?

I’ve never noticed: does Atlanta roll out anti-mosquito chemical spray trucks during the summer? When I was growing up in Ohio, they were a common sight every summer evening, and I thought they did a pretty good job of controlling mosquito population.