I am deeply saddened by the Coastal Commission’s decision to proceed with the draining, dredging and bulldozing of 12 acres at Malibu Lagoon. This will kill many of its inhabitants as well as displace the ones that are lucky enough to survive.
Business as usual as concerned citizens went up against legal experts who spoke of the lagoon as if it were one nonliving entity. I am still perplexed as to why the Sierra Club, Heal the Bay and other so called nonprofits would endorse a plan that initially called for using Monsanto’s harmful herbicide Round-Up to get rid of the non-native plants when it would clearly be harmful to our ocean.
I was also shocked by the paragraph on Heal The Bay’s Facebook page that read: “The challengers even brought in a high-priced attorney and an East Coast wetland restoration consultant to bolster their case, which argued against the use of heavy machinery to repair the wetland.”
They failed to mention that the supporters of this proposal were institutions that would benefit financially from the $7 million to $12 million-dollar bond; with their high-priced environmental scientists in tow and a plan that had been in the works for six years. The wheels were turning even before the concerned public had a chance to voice opposition. At the hearing, not one person that opposed this project was against the restoration of Malibu Lagoon, all we were asking is that it not be destroyed by bulldozers in order to “save” it.
Athena Shlien