This paper’s March 4 edition of your News Briefs column, “Just keep swimming,” tells us that $400,000 of the funds made available through Proposition 40, which has a 4.3 billion dollar payoff over the next 25 years, will be given to Heal the Bay for the removal of two barriers in Malibu Creek which are allegedly impeding some fish from getting to a good home. The column also mentions that these barriers are “upstream of Rindge Dam” which apparently the perpetrators of this scheme have not considered.
It would be prudent for Heal the Bay to, first, give flying lessons to these fishes so they can clear the 100 foot high Rindge Dam and plunge into the creek without spraining a fin or else they will never make it to their good home to fatten up for the fish stick factories. Heal the Bay and harm our pocketbooks. It’s beyond me how to come up with a more mindless way to waste taxpayers money. The column also states that this money will be used to replace invasive weeds, presumably with some other weeds, and to remove abandoned cars, presumably those dumped in the creek. Fortunately, we have the dam to block this debris derby from washing downstream into the lagoon although it’s said that sunken cars make an excellent fish refuge and spawning ground. Next, Heal the Bay will probably want us to spend millions of dollars of our money, not theirs, to remove the dam. They could call in Bomber Command and the Dam Busters who used skip bombing to blow the German dams during WWII. A successful mission would, of course, release a million cubic yards of sediment which would roar down the canyon and, most likely, take out most of the homes in Cross Creek. Not to worry, shake ‘n’ bake.
Jack Singleton