Effort to Preserve Sandstone Canyon

My hat is off to Don Schad, who is trying to preserve Sandstone Canyon in Diamond Bar (Times, March 7). It is a sad fact of life that when such natural treasures are gone, they are gone for all time.

In the San Gabriel Valley, open natural land has become very rare. I don’t feel we should bind ourselves so tightly in massive sprawling and overlapping housing developments and shopping centers that there is no longer room for the nature walks, and the spiritual renewal which can take place in natural areas.

I think Southern California has lost its way. We talk of the need to recycle, but there are more homes for sale here now, I suppose, than any time in our history. Is there a block of homes in the region where not even one family is not looking to move away?

Why on earth do we need to take the rare jewel of the vanishing natural breaks in our tightly packed valley and stuff them to overflowing with more new homes to offer for sale? It has to do with the desire for short-term profits for a few at the expense of an irreplaceable treasure for us all.

It is to our shame that we continue to allow this destruction which can never be undone. One has to love the euphemisms, as the community development director states the project “clearly involves the reconfiguration of the canyon” and “significant amounts of vegetation will be removed and replaced.”

Let’s be real about this. Will the citizens of Diamond Bar really tolerate this? Are they too busy to care?

It isn’t just Diamond Bar. Development money has a way of achieving its often selfish ends. When will we stop chewing up what little is left of our natural landscape, and more efficiently recycle what we have been building and using, that now sits vacant?

My very best wishes, Don Schad. We need more of you.

GUY C. DENECHAUD

San Gabriel