Santa Clara River Status

The lack of support and interference by Buck McKeon in regard to Heritage status for the Santa Clara River is a wake-up call to the people of Santa Clarita, Valencia and the north Valley.(“Santa Clara River Denied Federal Heritage Designation,” June 17).

McKeon is a poster boy for the forces that have scaled back our forests to 3% of old growth and caused the symbol of the flag of California, the brown [grizzly] bear, to become extinct due to economic destruction of habitat. The entire Santa Clarita-Valencia-Porter Ranch area is beginning to look like a Dr. Suess caricature of an over-developed cookie cutter environment where even a Lorax tree will not survive McKeon’s “Oncler” mind-set. McKeon’s idea of nature is a golf course where the only predator is a squirrel.

Attention voters. Your home prices will go up if you protect your environment, not destroy it. Whether your representative is Republican or Democrat, if they are in bed with the destroyers of the environment, you are being cheated on.

CHUCK HEINOLD, West Hills