Reducing the Wetlands

I just finished washing out a mayonnaise jar for my recycling bin when I picked up The Times to read (Part A, Aug. 10) that the environment had taken a double hit.

On the very same day that President Bush had greatly reduced the protection given wetlands, the Court of Appeal upheld Los Angeles County’s practice of letting developers hire the consultants who review their projects (Metro, Aug. 10). This will continue to allow developers to prepare their own environmental-impact reports.

This, in turn, allows them to hire tractable “experts� who remove inconvenient earthquake faults, relocate bothersome aquifers and find ancient trees “sick and unable to regenerate.� Field studies done by these malleable biologists will continue to report only coyotes, gophers, rye grass and the occasional sparrow.

Through the magic of computer-generated risk assessments, and a few well-placed exponents, all impacts can be mitigated to a “level of insignificance.� We already sit hours in traffic that has been mitigated by developers and breath air mitigated by industry.

Ironically, there is so little open space, and oak forests are coming down so rapidly, that companies are hunting for a place to plant the required replacement seedlings. Soon the owners of 7-Elevens throughout the Southland will be approached by developers asking if they can cut a hole in the Astroturf to accommodate a mitigation oak sapling.

We can soon expect to have developers knocking at our door, asking if we would participate in a wetlands mitigation by allowing them to plant pussy willows around our bathtubs. We, then, may be asked to replace a wildlife corridor by keeping both front and back doors standing open all night.

This apres profits le deluge attitude has dominated planning in the county for so long that the deluge is fast upon us. We who recycle and tend our compost piles are trying to stop the flood tide by bailing with a teaspoon. I, for one, am going to retrieve the mayonnaise jar from the bin, put a slot in the lid and start saving for a getaway.

MARY EDWARDS, Granada Hills