Eco-Jihadists Fight for Ballona? Readers Respond

I agree with and support Walter Lamb and Marcia Hanscom. They are educated and very experienced with the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve. I respect Dr. Travis Longcore's understanding of wetland and estuary dynamics.

A recent letter by California Coastal Commission staff states Playa Capital has been illegally draining surface water from the BWER for decades. Dewatering investigation by Patricia McPherson clearly shows that over-drafting of the fragile aquifer has also continued unabated since Playa Vista development started.

The blatant taking of the one resource a wetland or estuary absolutely needs and that is water, has compromised the ability for wildlife to survive and flourish. All of the studies conducted over the years during this unpermitted illegal taking, costing taxpayers millions of dollars, are invalid and misleading.

Fact: David Kay, Friends of the Ballona Wetlands, the Annenberg Foundation, the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Foundation, Heal The Bay, LA Waterkeeper, and others that place greed and dishonesty before integrity, have members that have been in on this morally if not legally deplorable scheme from the beginning. For them, it's never been about wildlife and ecology.

For the record, the Annenberg research and education facility should be adjacent to the Roland C. Ross Bird Conservation Area a.k.a. Oxford Lagoon. I've been stating this fact for years. The Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, County of Los Angeles, Annenberg Foundation and California Coastal Commission staff have repeatedly suppressed my attempts to discuss this viable alternative.

I have 10 years of upper watershed management experience and am a professional diver certified 25 years ago. This is an ongoing atrocity that must be stopped.

David Kay's disingenuous and unprofessional comments don't reflect well on his organization.  Mr. Kay is well aware that the Annenberg Foundation's proposed companion animal center is much more than "a few rooms to rehabilitate abandoned kittens."   The Memorandum of Understanding contemplates that the center for dogs and cats could account for as much as 25% of a 46,000 square foot facility.  For context, At 11,500 sq ft, the domestic pet center by itself would be over 7 times larger than the Sooky Goldman Nature Center in Franklin Canyon.

Mr. Kay would do well to stop obsessing with Marcia Hanscom, who is a single individual, and to instead start reaching out to the environmental community as a whole.  He will find a strong consensus against the animal center, which even his own Executive Director described as "odd", and which the Executive Director of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission called "a deal breaker."  As someone who has rescued many cats myself, I know that even animal rights groups don't understand the proposed location for this domestic pet center.  They know that this money could be spent much more effectively from an animal welfare perspective and in a way that doesn't betray the public trust.

We always make a point to compliment the Friends of Ballona Wetlands outdoor education programs in Area B.  In a polarized environment, it is too easy to vilify those who don't share our opinions, and that distracts from productive discussion.  However, it is a matter of public record that Friends of Ballona Wetlands, rightly or wrongly, fully supported the development of Area C into condos and office spaces back when the fight was underway to preserve that land.  The Friends' current support of a plan to construct new buildings in this important upland habitat should be taken in that context.  People should also be aware that the Friends' existing programs are specifically called out as beneficiaries of the Annenberg proposal in the Memorandum of Understanding.  It is not wrong of the Friends to desire funds for those worthy programs, but they ought to be more forthright about the clear conflict of interest.

What is at stake here is not just a patch of public conservation land at Ballona.  In order to get their inappropriate use of public land approved, the Annenberg Foundation is attempting to substitute established ecological science with PR spin, and the CA Department of Fish and Wildlife then seeks to tout the partnership as a statewide model.  As the President of an environmental advocacy group, Mr. Kay should be as dismayed by this as the rest of the environmental community is.

We ask public stakeholders not to get sucked into a war of words between different individuals, but rather to think objectively about whether one wealthy individual ought to be allowed to construct an ecologically detrimental vanity project on public conservation land. 

Walter Lamb
Ballona Wetlands Land Trust
www.ballona.org