Bolsa Chica Development Plans Spark Some Strong Opposition

* I am an ecologist, so I suppose that that makes me immediately suspect. I am also a geologist and a marine biologist. I have been in and around the Bolsa Chica wetlands since the 1930s. If we ignore all of the ecological reasons not to build on the Bolsa Chica property there are still better reasons to restore the whole property to wetlands.

I lived in Compton in 1933, the last time there was a major quake on the Newport-Inglewood fault. When you decide to build 4,000 homes on the Bolsa Chica property, you would do well to look at the trace of the Newport-Inglewood Fault. When the 1933 quake hit and demolished Long Beach and Compton, including the rotary converter at Los Patos, (now Warner), and PCH, everything else just inland from Seal Beach to Huntington Beach was what it should be still, a tidewater wetlands. Liquefaction was not a problem, it was all mud anyway.

The ground conditions have not changed. It is still mud, Huntington Harbour not withstanding, and it should occur to almost anyone that that whole region is a prime area for ground collapse when the next quake hits on that fault. It is not a question of “if,” only “when.” Ask the folks at Koll if they would like to place their home office at Warner and Los Patos!

LEIGH MANLEY

Stanton

* Regarding the article “Muddying the Waters Further,” (Jan. 22) on the Bolsa Chica wetlands: The only vision (Lucy) Dunn (from the Koll Real Estate Group) has is dollar signs. When are people going to understand that without an environment and the preservation of our natural resources, there won’t be a future!

Have a good look at San Juan Capistrano, where’s the swallows? Or the toll roads that are taking our natural resources, or Unocal’s vision of building a golf course in the Fullerton hills. Of course they’re going to leave an area for the birds. Just what we need is a another golf course. That’s what I call vision.

Haven’t we destroyed enough of our future? Koll may have the money, but they have no vision.

DONALD FERGUSON

Buena Park

* Do the people of Huntington Beach know how cavalierly the county is treating them?

The county came to town for what was to have been a dialogue with the community about the environmental report. Instead, the county, after agreeing to the dialogue, changed the rules and said the only input the community could have with the county would be in writing . I urge all citizens of Huntington Beach to write to Paul Lanning-EMA/environmental planning division, County of Orange, PO Box 4048, Santa Ana, Calif. 92702-4048. Ask him why no one is allowed to talk about the EIR to the county?

EILEEN MURPHY

Huntington Beach

* The majority of the people I speak to in our city do not want 5,000 or even 4,000 homes built on the Bolsa Chica ecosystem. That’s why a new City Council was elected last year. Still, an active minority seems to get a lot of publicity by saying those who don’t want any more congestion in our city are “NIMBYs.” In other words “Not in my back yard.”

Most of us moved here because we liked the way the town was. We’d like to keep it that way as much as we can. What’s wrong with that? Less than 5% of the city of Huntington Beach hasn’t been paved over. Can’t we say enough is enough? Is Southern California a better place because it now has 24 million instead of 2 million?

Koll is the fourth group that has tried to speculate on the Bolsa Chica real estate. The county may override our City Council and approve the project, but after it’s built they’ll turn it over to Huntington Beach to administer and we’ll be forced to accept it within our city borders.

Somehow that doesn’t seem to be democracy in action.

BILL HALPIN

Huntington Beach