Hill Canyon Project

Thumbing through the April 11 edition of The Times, I find my favorite sections.

Sports: Masters Tournament perennial competitor Greg Norman and three others scrounge around in the brush, looking for a lost ball. Hundreds of spectators look on.

Conejo Valley: The city of Thousand Oaks and the Conejo Recreation and Park District have a golf course plan that will replace the best and last riparian habitat in the region. (Riparian what, you say? Oh, just the refuge for mountain lions, bobcats, deer, hawks, songbirds, snakes, fish, turtles, etc.)

Op-ed: The planners for the Hill Canyon golf course have taken steps to be as “nature-sensitive as possible.”

Silliness! It is obvious that reporter did not bother reading the environmental impact report for the project. The possibility of golf balls flying off the miserly fairways is not addressed. Golf carts would cut through the “wildlife corridors.” I hope those pond turtles know to look both ways before they cross from the creek to their upland breeding sites. Three-quarters of the water from the Arroyo Conejo would be diverted to irrigate the greens. Water hazards, uh, “wetland restoration” would be created. And as for multiuse trails, equestrians, hikers and bikers get to share the sewer plant road shoulder.

I should stick to the funnies.

NORA AIDUKAS, Thousand Oaks

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My husband and I have two small children. We live in a neighborhood adjacent to the Wildwood Regional Park.

Our family uses the resources provided by our local government--our library (second to none), our parks and the activities and events hosted by our city.

It is my responsibility, as a parent, to educate our children as best I can with the resources I have, both taught to me by my parents and received through a formal education. This means teaching my children all aspects of our world: words, color and music. These three things are purely and simply found in nature.

Nature teaches much more than flora and fauna. Nature teaches love, discipline, consideration and coexistence. Our children walk in nature’s beauty, serenity and solitude. We listen to nature’s words, its song and its wind. We picnic by its water, its bubbling brightness and its reflections. We touch and smell.

Our children learn discipline using soft voices so that they may hear nature’s sounds. Our children learn where to walk so as not to flatten nature’s unique shapes and colors. We admire nature’s perfection, balance and multitudes of life forms, which provide us with wisdom.

The city of Thousand Oaks and the Conejo Valley Recreation and Park District want to build a golf course in our Wildwood Regional Park. They want to plow through our wetlands, cut short the lifetimes of grasses, flowers, shrubs, and trees. They say they can replace and renew all of this.

What you destroy you can never fully replace. (Artificial neon green, not born in this canyon, not sufficient for the wildlife.). The Hill Canyon Recreational Project is intruding upon a process invaluable to our children, our future and our dreams for a better place to live.

BETSY BURNHAM, Thousand Oaks