Catalina Scout Camp to Close

Make no mistake. The reason that the Scouts are losing their lease on Camp Emerald Bay has nothing to do with “environmental sensitivity.” It has to do with money. The Cousteau Society can produce more of it with its upscale resort than can the Scouts. Scouts have occupied the cove for the past 65 years and can probably do so for the next 65 years without very much impact at all.

What is most disturbing is that it is the Cousteau Society, the same group that would make us believe that they would divert any of their ships around a school of anchovies lest they disturb a fish, that is willing to wreak havoc upon and eliminate a habitat where city-dwelling children have for generations been able at low cost to spend a week learning to interact with and love the sea. One would expect Cousteau Society officials to be at least as sensitive to human children as they tell us they are to sea creatures.

If anything, we need more places where urban children from all socioeconomic levels can go to learn from and appreciate one another and to learn to love the natural setting in which this takes place. We don’t need any more upscale resorts, regardless of purpose, which reserve our natural surroundings for the privileged few.

GENE RUBIN, Van Nuys