Babbitt and Washington Mutual
Bruce Babbitt is a hired advocate, an employee of Washington Mutual’s law firm of Latham and Watkins, and contrary to your headline, he does not lend credibility to the Ahmanson Ranch development. He has sold his credibility by accepting WaMu’s dollars to ram this development through.
Habitat destruction is the leading cause of extinction, and Ahmanson Ranch is the last significant sizable habitat in this area. It is the only place in the area that has a viable population of red-legged frogs, one of only four populations in Southern California. This is due to the absence of significant development in the upper Las Virgenes Creek watershed, and it will be impossible to develop Ahmanson Ranch without affecting the frog’s habitat. Golf courses and access roads are planned along the creek. Frogs will be mulched by lawn mowers, steeped in turf-building pesticides and fertilizers, flattened by motorists and caught by kids and pets. The sandy creek bottom will be eroded by the surge flows from runoff and become choked with algae from excess nutrients. It’s goodbye frogs and hello to yet another urbanized creek bottom.
The San Fernando Valley spineflower and the red-legged frog have been wiped out by development elsewhere and there simply aren’t other undeveloped areas for them to survive. One hundred fifty years ago, we had lots of Ahmanson Ranch-like habitats, but they’re plowed, paved and developed now. It’s the fact that Ahmanson Ranch is the last habitat left that makes it so valuable ecologically.
Just how does WaMu plan to put in 3,050 high-end homes, two golf courses and commercial properties and grade enough dirt to cover a four-lane interstate highway 8 feet deep from their Seattle home to their lobbyist’s office in Washington, D.C., without harming the watershed and endangered species?
So Bruce Babbitt, if you want to restore your credibility, renounce developer money and get your fat cat buddies at WaMu to sell the ranch to the public for preservation.
Paul Nicholson
Thousand Oaks
