Endangered Species Act

* In response to your editorial, “Tuneup for a Venerable Vehicle” (Jan. 3), I would suggest a major engine overhaul!

The Endangered Species Act of 1973, like a lot of well-intended legislation, has some flaws, the primary one being that it undermines a moral principle upon which our form of American democracy is founded: the protection of private property.

While we flaunt the protection of the golden eagle and the peregrine falcon as examples of the act’s success, we are able to identify the obvious purpose of the act. These species, as well as the spotted owl, reside largely upon government-owned land. There can be little argument regarding public land. But what about land that is not owned by the government?

How many of us envisioned back in 1973 that a private landowner would be denied the right to build his retirement home on his acre of land because the act was being used to protect a rodent, a bird that dwells mostly in Mexico, or even a fly?

You stated, “Landowners with imperiled species on their property have been able to proceed with development while limiting and mitigating the ecological damage caused by construction.” That sounds nice but it sure is poppycock! Paying $4,000 to a “rat preserve” for permission to build a home on one acre of land is rubbish. What happened to “just compensation” in the Fifth Amendment? What ecological damage is being mitigated to save a subspecies of rat at such enormous costs?

We should not allow the act to be used to prohibit owners of private property from using their land in what would otherwise be a legal and practical purpose.

KENNETH WILLIS

Upland

* We found your editorial regarding the Endangered Species Act (ESA) dismaying, and believe your statement that the act has stopped only 23 of more than 34,000 plans and projects reviewed under ESA between 1987 and 1991 to be intellectually dishonest. Many projects were reviewed and approved under the act, but phenomenal amounts of land and mitigation funds were extracted from private property owners for the “right” to build on “their” property; without a dime of compensation. The government is taking land for our societal goals without paying for it, and that is theft.

While protecting the bald eagle or even the lyrate bladderpod are noble causes, they don’t justify institutionalized thievery and tyranny. If species and habitat are that important to society that we prevent someone from fully or partially utilizing his land, then it is our responsibility to compensate him commensurate with the degraded value of his property. DONALD W. SCHMITZ JR., President

Fifth Amendment Foundation

Santa Monica