Emerald Bay

I am pleased to see that the Cousteau Society has backed away from being involved in displacing the Boy Scouts from their Emerald Bay facility on Catalina Island (Oct. 15). I am disappointed that the Catalina Island Co. continues with its hard-line commitment to replace the Boy Scouts with a resort development.

I have been taking my oceanography students on field laboratory studies to various locations on Catalina Island and other marine environments in Southern California for more than 20 years. Emerald Bay and its adjacent land area constitute the finest stretch of unadulterated coastal and marine environment left in Southern California. I see no evidence that the Boy Scouts have degraded that environment. What they have done, for the last 65 years, is to provide thousands of urban boys with a chance to get out of the city and run over the open hills around Emerald Bay and to observe the wonderful marine life in the bay itself. If the Catalina Island Co. cannot see the value of Emerald Bay to youths, then the appropriate governmental agencies should get involved and have Emerald Bay set aside in perpetuity for all the people including the Scouts and save one of the prime marine ecosystems in Southern California from resort exploitation.

IVAN P. COLBURN

Professor Oceanography and Geology

Cal State Los Angeles