Pay the Price: Save the Santa Ana

Over the past 100 years, the citizens of Orange County have polluted and ruined one of the most beautiful and productive waterways in all California. Anadromous fish used to swim well up the Santa Ana to spawn. It used to be a river that people fished in all along its course as it wound its way from the hills of San Bernardino.

Finally, after 100 years of pouring sewage into this waterway, removing so much water from it that it doesn’t flow anymore over most of its length, and driving much of the life that once flourished in it to extinction, we have been reminded by outsiders (the Environmental Protection Agency) that we have done this precious natural resource a grievous wrong.

Because we wouldn’t be responsible and clean up the mess we have made and control ourselves and limit the growth that has resulted in this damage, others have now stepped in and demanded that we make it right. I am personally embarrassed to live in a county where our largest potential waterway is an eyesore.

It is even more embarrassing when I hear the voices of responsible and supposedly well-educated people and local government officials complain about these reasonable changes that others (from outside) have urged us to make.

One year after Earth Day, 1990, have we all forgotten the lessons we learned that day? Does no one remember? Think globally, act locally!

So what if it would cost billions to correct the damage we have done and continue to do to the Santa Ana River? This is possibly the wealthiest county in the entire United States. Why not set high goals (possibly impossible-seeming goals at present) for ourselves and generations to come? Wouldn’t it be wiser to begin the work now and give ourselves a real challenge?

Why devise some lesser standard for the Santa Ana River simply because it would be easier on us? Why compromise on our collective future and that of our children? Why not settle instead for a dream, a dream that once again steelhead trout would swim up the Santa Ana River and spawn? Why not make the ‘90s a decade when we shoot for the moon (environmentally) here in Orange County.

DENNIS L. KELLY, Professor of marine biology, Orange Coast College