East Mojave Park

* Kudos to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) for defeating Rep. Jerry Lewis’ (R-Redlands) attempt to curtail the National Park Service’s role in managing the new park in the East Mojave Desert (April 26). The park will preserve the pristine, beautiful East Mojave Desert and it will have a big effect on environmental protection of the area.

I would like to give a message to Lewis: Just back off. We are tired of your dirty tricks to roll back the establishment of the park. With your repeated attempts you have proven that you really do not care for our state. It is the vested interests providing you PAC money who are motivating your tirade against one good cause which would benefit all Californians. Also, before you reinitiate your tirade against the park, please consider the air you and your family breathe. The preserves (parks) are an absolute necessity to maintain a good environmental balance.

SUDIP GUHAROY

Rancho Mirage

* In your article regarding the desert war, I found Feinstein’s contempt for East Mojave residents both repulsive and unconscionable.

While President Clinton, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Feinstein are enjoying the thought of sacrificing rural desert dwellers on the altar of Beltway-based radical environmentalism, I am certain that the common people will someday rise up from their “desert grave” and reclaim the desert region from the occupying forces of elitist environmentalists, the National Park Service, Washington bureaucrats, big city attorneys and liberal Democrats.

DON AMADOR

Oakley

* Lewis has undertaken a one-man crusade to kill the Mojave National Preserve. As a powerful member of the House Appropriations Committee, he delayed the federal budget by rejecting the will of more than two-thirds of Californians to protect our fragile desert lands.

In your article Lewis claims the Mojave as “my desert.” It is not his desert--it belongs to all Americans. He complains that protecting our natural heritage serves a “political objective.” The objective served by protecting the desert is actually a conservative one, which ensures that the desert will provide jobs, recreation and the freedom of unspoiled lands for many generating to come.

WILLIAM CORCORAN

Culver City