By Town Crier Staff Report

When Aubrey Osborne, a student from Montclaire School, writes a letter, the editor of the San Jose Mercury News takes note.

Osborne’s letter-to-the-editor warning about the dangers of water waste was published in the newspaper’s Opinion section June 17.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District invited students to write essays on the subject of water conservation, and Osborne’s teacher turned it into a class assignment. Although the 12-year- old only received an A- on her essay, the Mercury News evidently thought it was a grade-A effort.

In the letter, Osborne asked readers if they were aware of their own water waste.

“Did you know that an average person uses 107,000 gallons of water per year?” she wrote. “Stop and think about what you can do to help conserve water.”

She pinpointed adults as possible culprits.

“Sometimes I ask grown-ups if they waste water, and they say no, but in my heart I know they are lying,” she wrote.

The letter led the “Young Voices” section of the Opinion page, which the Mercury News runs occasionally as a forum for the paper’s younger readers.