The City of Dublin has begun construction on a 31,000 square foot aquatic complex at Emerald Glen Park featuring indoor and outdoor pools, six water slides, and several small splash pools.

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Except for the unfortunate fact that California is in the midst one of the worst droughts in state history.

Building a $36 million water park while the East Bay is classified as being in an “exceptional drought,” the most severe degree of drought, is obscenely negligent.

According to the “City of Dublin – Emerald Glen Recreation and Aquatic Complex FAQ” released on Dublin’s website, there is a “community need for this project and it has been in the planning stages for over a decade.”

A decade ago, nobody could have predicted the severity of the current drought.

While he water park will not accumulate a massive portion of the municipal water supply, as claimed by Dublin, the state has enacted mandatory conservation laws that are designed to reduce water usage by 25 percent this year compared to last.

Dublin was given a 12 percent reduction quota by the state, and so far its water usage is down about 36 percent compared to usage last year.

But Governor Jerry Brown told USA Today, “We’re in for tough times…There’s been fairly inadequate conservation so far.”

Dublin justifies the construction by saying the city reached its quota, meaning the city has water it can waste on something blatantly unnecessary.

In reality, the water conservation in California requires a collective effort from all areas. While Dublin may have a cushion in its quota, the city still needs to be conserving wherever possible.

The construction also includes a cardio room, picnic area, ping pong tables, locker rooms, party space rental, and administration offices. This project will offers beautiful new community gathering areas. It’s the water park itself that is mistimed and ill-advised.

It is not the fact that the water park will consume massive amounts of water that’s the problem. Realistically, it’s probably not a big portion of water when compared to Dublin’s municipal water usage.

It’s the fact that in the midst of a drought in which 44 percent of California is in the most severe degree of drought possible, according to the LA Times, Dublin finds it acceptable to build a brand new water park.

This gives the impression to locals who are trying desperately to conserve water that they can cut back on their efforts if they see Dublin wasting water on a recreational center.

A justification Dublin is trying to make for the project is that the opening will be after the winter of 2017.

We have seen the lowest winter rainfall totals in recent history these last few years.

Although we are set to have a wetter-than-usual El Niño winter this year, rainfall percentages have not hit the previous average of 23 inches per year since almost a decade ago in 2006, according to U.S. climate data.

The City of Dublin’s construction of the Emerald Glen Water Park is extremely thoughtless, and, if opened as planned in 2017 it will be a gross misuse of the extremely scarce water supply.