Experts’ Claims Can’t Be Trusted

“Geologists Find No Fault With Landfills” (Oct. 19) offers proof to the old adage that you can learn something new every day. Not many of us could have ever guessed that an “active” earthquake fault is one that has experienced some “shaking” within the last 11,000 years.

County sanitation district scientists report that their data show there are no active faults below Toland Canyon, but Gordon Kimball (a scientist himself) is skeptical, claiming those geologists “say just what the district wants them to say.”

Geologists hired by opponents of the landfill expansion say that the faults under Toland Canyon have shaken as recently as 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, but who is to say that these scientists aren’t saying just what the opponents want them to say?

Two groups with conflicting motives and a couple thousand years difference in their data. Since it’s not possible for all of us nonscientists to determine for ourselves the last time these faults shook, we are expected to rely on the testimony of the “experts.”

In this particular case, the smart money has to be bet on neither. After having seen billions of dollars spent over the years to have geologists “study” earthquake faults, all taxpayers have to show for their contributions are higher insurance premiums (if you can even get insured), building codes that haven’t lessened any of the devastation and still no warning about when, where or how big the next earthquake will be.

BRUCE ROLAND

Ojai