Protecting the Desert

Times’ contributor David Glidden opines “Who would have imagined, a century ago, that settlers would one day see the California desert as a place to be revered and left alone?” (“Desert: Protection From the People,” Opinion, Oct. 22). But Glidden fails to conjure eloquently on the pioneers’ summarized reaction to a myriad of multi-abuse activities currently despoiling a once supremely pristine region.

Would the settlers be disgusted by the endless number of non-regenerating gouges into the vulnerable flora by irresponsible off-road vehicle owners? Would they recoil at the image of large-scale gold mines--yielding minuscule mineral amounts--whose poisonous leeching pools kill hosts of desert-dwelling animals? Would they scratch their heads at the disappearance of the previously ubiquitous desert tortoise?

Would their original planned route be confused by the number of roads (some illegally paved) that cause further ruination of the Mojave’s natural characteristics?

And if the initial voyagers of the California desert visit a few years hence, they might catch a glimpse of the Los Angeles trash train hauling garbage into the eastern Mojave. Or the image of the Ward Valley nuclear repository south of Needles. The 20 or so casinos lining the banks of the Colorado and the burgeoning Laughlin boom town dumping sewage into the West’s last unpolluted river.

Most of the area crisscrossed by the early settlers has been locked up behind barbed-wire by massive military installations, which claim the need to grab even more dwindling desert wilderness for mock battles. But salvaging the Mojave’s scattered remnants can now only be accomplished by aggressive stewardship: the oft-proposed eastern Mojave National Park, enlargement of Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Monuments and the addition of designated wilderness areas. Otherwise the pioneers wouldn’t recognize a thing.

MICHAEL DiGREGORIO

Los Angeles