The Parkside letters: Kenny

Note: This is one in a series of posts presenting letters received by the California Coastal Commission regarding Parkside Estates, a proposed 155-home development in Huntington Beach. I am presenting these letters as evidence of how some teachers are brainwashing our children into a state of panic about the environment. Out of kindness, I have corrected simple grammatical and spelling errors.

Parkside Estates is being built on a bean field that has been in agricultural production for 50 years. A portion of the land with less than half an acre of marginal wetlands is being preserved. The builder has never owned the land known as Bolsa Chica, which has been purchased by the public and is being restored to its natural state. For more information on Parkside, click here.

Dear Ms. Vaughn:

Did you know that around [95]% of California's wetlands are destroyed? My name is Kenny [surname deleted] and I am a student at Los Coyotes School. I am writing to inform you about California's dying wetlands. The wetlands here need your help to exist because homes are gonig to be built there.

We know that the California Coast Act Section 30233 doesn't allow people to build on wetlands. The [builder's] CDP application should be denied. Over 27 species of natural plants live in Bolsa Chica. Also, Bolsa Chica provides a habitat for around 30% of California's endangered species. Building homes on wetlands is not a very bright idea because it is a lot more expensive than building on dry land.

Wetlands are one of the last open spaces in California and if we slowly build homes on them, they will be destroyed. We must ask ourselves one question, will we miss them? Animals that lose their wetland habitat and can't adapt to a new environment will die. Endangered species will probably become extinct and common plants and animals will most likely become endangered if we continue to destroy our wetlands.

As you can see, many unfortunate things can happen if we destroy our wetlands. I hope you will help me in the battle to save California's remaining wetlands.

Do you think Kenny knows what a CDP is (it's a Coastal Development Permit) or that he researched California Coastal Act Section 30233 all by himself? I doubt it. Especially because if Kenny had read the Act, he would have found that it includes criteria for determining what is, and what is not, a wetland. The Corps of Engineers and US Department of Fish & Game also have criteria. Parkside Estates doesn't meet them. The nearby Bolsa Chica does, and California taxpayers are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase and restore that land.

As for Kenny's statement that 95% of California's wetlands have been destroyed, no one seems to know where that number comes from, and it's oft repeated as holy. (Here's a reference to a 91% loss, most of it to rice farming in the Sacramento Delta, not development.) It's unimportant anyway. What matters is what's happening to wetlands in the state today. According to the California Wetlands Information System:

The State's wetland acreage is expected to increase as a result of the Governor's new policy. The policy recommends the completion of a statewide inventory of existing wetlands that will then lead to the establishment of a formal wetland acreage goal. The Resources Agency expects that the wetland acreage and quality could increase by as much as 30 to 50 percent by the year 2010. Based on the current estimate that there are 450,000 acres of existing wetlands in the State, the increase could be as much as 225,000 acres.

Whoa. I thought they were dying.

Kenny also was made to think (I almost typed "Kenny also thinks," but that's incorrect) that wetlands are one of the last remaining open spaces in California. Uh-uh. In fact, 95% of California is undeveloped -- 50% state and federal lands, 45% agriculture, 5% development. Unlike Kenny's 95% figure, this one is proven and sourced. I have a map of it from the California Resources Agency on my wall.

Kenny's little brain has been greenwashed and now he lives with a false fear of ecological holocaust that may be with him for what should be a long and healthy life, given the excellent condition of our environment. His teacher goes undisciplined, probably championed, ready to warp again next year.

Oh, and I don't know about you, but I liked it better when they called them swamps. Coming up with "wetlands" was a masterful stroke by the green lobby.

See also:
The Parkside Letters: Jeremy