Protecting the Desert

Your editorial repeats several statements from the testimony of Rep. Richard Lehman (D-Fresno) at the recent House subcommittee hearing on the California Desert Protection Act about the creation of the proposed Mojave National Park. These statements are likely to leave an incorrect impression of the facts.

Lehman states that the area of the proposed park “is crisscrossed by seven transmission lines, gas corridors, two interstate highways and railroads.” In fact, there are only three power transmission corridors and two gas pipelines within the boundary of the proposed park. Numerous existing national parks are entered and crossed by public power and gas lines, an example being the power transmission lines of Montana Power Co. in Yellowstone National Park.

Two interstate highways, I-15 and I-40, border the proposed park on the south and north, but do not cross it except where I-15 crosses a narrow neck separating Clark Mountain from the rest of the proposed park. By contrast, major highways enter and cross many parks in the national park system.

The congressman states: “The land (of the proposed park) is checkerboarded with private property.” In fact, private lands in the proposed park comprise only about 10% of its total area.

The proposed Mojave National Park is a centerpiece of the desert protection bill. As the BLM (which presently administers the area of the proposed park on a “multiple use” basis) has recognized, “in all of the California desert there is no finer grouping of different wildlife habitats than in the East Mojave, both from the viewpoint of the total number of species and the total number of animals.”

FRANCIS M. WHEAT

Los Angeles